SYDNEY 
GREEHB1E 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

CARROLL  ALCOTT 

PRESENTED  BY 

CARROLL  ALCOTT  MEMORIAL 
LIBRARY  FUND  COMMITTEE 


JAPAN 

REAL   AND    IMAGINARY 


THE  LINES  OF    THE  TORII   AT  MIYAJIMA    HAVE    THE  BEAUTY   OF   THE  WINGS 

OF  AN   ALBATROSS 


JAPAN 

REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 


By 
SYDNEY  GREENBIE 


With  Many  Illustrations 
from   Photographs 


HARPER    &   BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK  AND   LONDON 


JAPAN:   REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 


Copyright  1920.  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  June.  1920 


College 
Library 


gtO 


To 

MARJORIE  LATTA  BARSTOW 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE ~- xv 

Part  One 
IMPRESSIONISTIC 

CHAP. 

I.  THE  INLAND  SEA 3 

II.  A  TRANSIENT  IN  KOBE n 

III.  I  BECOME  A  BOARDER 32 

IV           SAKE_AND  SONG .  55 

V.  I  BECOME  A  HOUSEHOLDER 73 

Part  Two 
THE  COMMUNAL  PHASE 

VI.  MEN,  WOMEN,  AND  CHILDREN 97 

VII.  RECREATION ."  ...  114 

VIII.  CRAFTSMANSHIP 128 

IX.  THE  HEART  OF  JAPAN       .    .  144 

X.  SHINTOISM,  OR  THE  COMMUNITY  OF  SOULS      ....  157 

Part  Three 
THE  SPOKES  OF  MODERN  JAPAN 

XI.  THE  OPEN  HAND 179 

XII.  THE  THUMB 192 

XIII.  COMMERCIAL  JAPAN — OSAKA 208 

XIV.  MYTHOLOGICAL  JAPAN — NARA 227 

XV.  A  MONK  FOR  A  NIGHT 243 

XVI.  CLASSICAL  JAPAN— KYOTO 256 

XVII.  GION  MATSURI  PAGEANT 281 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

XVIII.  MEDIEVAL  JAPAN— TOKYO 286 

XIX.  A  RING  ROUND  THE  SUN 295 

XX.  FUJI  THE  ATTAINABLE 302 

Part  Four 
CRITICAL 

XXI.  ETA — THE  SUBMERGED 315 

XXII.  WHERE  SLUMS  ARE  SLUMS 329 

XXIII.  FIVE  HOURS  IN  PRISON 337 

XXIV.  CONFLICTING  SOCIAL  FORCES — I 351 

Labor  Rises 

XXV.  CONFLICTING  SOCIAL  FORCES — II 365 

Bureaucracy  Acts 

XXVI.  EDUCATION  BY  RESCRIPT 379 

XXVII.  SUPPRESSION 402 

Press  Censorship 

XXVIII.  EXPRESSION 409 

Drama  and  Art 

XXIX.  CONCERNING  JAPANESE  PERSONALITY 422 

XXX.  HISTORICAL  AND  FATIDICAL 440 

INDEX         , 453 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE  LINES  OF  THE  TORII  AT  MIYAJIMA  HAVE  THE  BEAUTY  OF 

THE  WINGS  OF  AN  ALBATROSS Frontispiece 

LIKE  A  FLOCK  OF  LOWERING  SWANS,  THE  SAILING-VESSELS 

PRESS  ON  INTO  THE  NIGHT Facing  P-  IO 

WHILE  THE  ROOTED  PINES  AFFECT  AN  ATTITUDE  OF  MOCKING         ' '  IO 

KOBE  HARBOR  THICK  WITH  SAILLESS  MASTS,  SWAYING  WITH 

THE  SWELLS "  II 

IT  WAS  NOT  KOBE'S  FINISHED  FRONT  THAT  GAVE  IT  AN  AP- 
PEARANCE OF  SUCCESS,  BUT  ITS  UNFINISHED  STATE  .  "  II 

TWO  HIGH  WALLS,  TWO  DEEP  OPEN  GUTTERS — A  KOBE  STREET         ' '  14 

INTERNED  GARDENS  AND  LIBERATED  TELEGRAPH  POLES  AND 

BLACK  GARBAGE  BOXES "  14 

NEGLECT  IS  FOLLOWING  IN  THE  WAKE  OF  THE  JAPANESE  INVA- 
SION OF  KOBE'S  FORMER  FOREIGN  SETTLEMENT  ...  "  15 

PERCHED  UPON  THE  HILLSIDE  AGAINST  A  BACKGROUND, 

SOBER  AND  SOOTHING "  30 

IN  THAT  ROOM  I  COULD  FORGET  THE  TENNO's  PALACE      ...         "  30 

AT  LEAST  THERE  WAS  SOMETHING  PICTURESQUE  IN  THE  ARMOR 

OF  THE  SAMURAI "  31 

MEEK   AND   HUMBLE   WHEN   SERVING   ME "  3! 

WHO   KNOWS   WHAT   SHE   SAW   IN   HER   MIRROR "  3! 

JAPANESE  WEAR  FOUR-INCH  CLOGS  IN  WET  WEATHER,  AND 

THEY  NEED  THEM "  50 

THE  SAWYER  STILL  HOLDS  HIS  OWN  AGAINST   PROGRESS  "  50 

WE  HEARD  HER  CRYING.      SHE  CONFESSED  SHE  WAS  LONESOME         "  51 

MINATOGAWA,  KOBE'S  THEATER  STREET,  LEADS  STRAIGHT  TO 
THE  SHIPYARDS,  AND  THE  THRONGS  OF  PLEASURE- 
SEEKERS  BEAR  IN  THEIR  FACES  THE  LINES  OF  TOIL  .  .  58 

THE  FACT  THAT  WATER  RUNS  DOWNHILL  SEEMS  NOT  YET  TO 

HAVE  BEEN  DISCOVERED "  59 

THOUGH  THE  SHEAVES  OF  WHEAT  ARE  PLENTY,  THIS  WOMAN 

WOULD  MAKE  ONE  THINK  A  FAMINE  HAD  HIT  THE  LAND  "  59 

GEISHA  ARE  INDISPENSABLE  TO  A  MAN'S  ENJOYMENT  OF 

CHERRY-BLOSSOMS "  62 

NOWHERE  WAS  A  BELATED  ARMISTICE  CELEBRATED  LIKE  THIS         ' '  62 


x  ILLUSTRATIONS 

BEERU,  STEAMING  RICE,  AND  MAID  AS  HOPEFUL  AS  THE  PLUM- 
BLOSSOM      Facing  p.     63 

NOT  THE  OUTER  SHAPE,  BUT  THE  POSSIBILITIES,  MAKE  THESE 

TEA-HOUSES "  63 

THREE  ROOMS  AND  A  KITCHEN  WITH  A  FENCE  ALL  THE  WAY 

ROUND "  78 

NOTHING  ESCAPES  EVICTION  ON  THE  HONORABLE  CLEANING- 
DAY    "  78 

FOR  EVERY  WRINKLE  A  CHILD — BUT  SHE  IS  LEARNING      ...         "  79 

THE     MICROSCOPE    WOULD     REVEAL     THOUSANDS    LIKE     HER 

HERE "  79 

HOW   STRIKINGLY   SIMILAR  THEIR   FACIAL   EXPRESSIONS     .      .         "  94 

THE   WHITE-CLOTHED   POLICEMAN  EARNS  LITTLE  MONEY   BUT 

LOTS   OF   RESPECT "  94 

BORN   IN   JAPAN "  95 

DISSATISFIED   BUT  CURIOUS:    SO   WAS  I "  95 

THE   CHILD   KNOWETH   ITS   FATHER   FROM   ITS   MOTHER        .      .         "  95 

SHOUT  "BOY"  AND  THIS  APPEARS "       no 

BUT   THIS   WILL   SOON   ORDER  THE   BOYS "          IIO 

CURIOSITY    NEVER    AFFECTS    US    LIKE    THIS — BUT    A    SHIP'S 

COME   IN "          HO 

THE  TENDERNESS   OF   JAPANESE  CHILDREN  IS   PATHETIC  AND 

THEIR   NATURES   ARE  LOVABLE "          III 

NO  NOTION  OF  WHAT'S  HAPPENING,   BUT  OBLIGING  JUST  THE 

SAME "          III 

A  CARP   FOR  EACH   BOY "          114 

NO   "WUXTRA,"   BUT   A   CLUSTER   OF   JINGLING   BELLS   ...         "          114 

FROM   THE   SUBLIME  TO  THE   RIDICULOUS "          114 

THE  UMPIRE  WITH  THE  SWORD  AND  THE  STENTOR  WITH  THE 

SKIRT   ARE  JUST   AS   IMPORTANT "          115 

BUT  THE   UMPIRE  DOESN'T  TAKE   HIMSELF   AS   SERIOUSLY   AS 

THE   WINNER "          115 

EVEN  IF  HATS  ARE  REVERSED — NOT  SO  THE  SLIGHTEST  RULE 

OF   ARCHERY "          122 

THESE    WRESTLERS    ARE   MONSTROSITIES    IN    THIS    WORLD    OF 

LITTLE   PEOPLE      123 

SIGNS  AND  UMBRELLAS  ARE  FOREIGN,   BUT  CO-OPERATION  IS 

NOT 126 

THIS   FISH-MARKET   WAS   ALIVE   AT   4   A.M 126 

WOMEN    PILE-DRIVERS    EACH    WITH    A    ROPE-END    AND    A    PA- 
THETIC CHANT 127 

THE   LITTLE   WHEAT    USED  CAN    BE   THRESHED    BY   THE    OLD- 
FASHIONED   FLAIL       .  127 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xi 

POOR  IN  DETAIL,  EN  MASSE  THE  TEMPLE  MARRIES  SILENCE 

WITH  MAJESTY Facing  p.  142 

AND  WHEN  THE  RAM  OVER  THE  STEPS  STRIKES  THE  BELL 

WITHIN,  THE  EARTH  TREMBLES "  142 

IF  YOU  WANT  ANYTHING,  DON'T  VOTE  FOR  IT,  ASK  THE  ME- 
CHANICAL FORTUNE-TELLER  "  143 

DON'T  DEPOSIT  YOUR  BALLOT  IN  A  BOX — TIE  IT  TO  A  RAIL     .         ' '          143 

THE  TORII  MAKES  THE  WILDERNESS  HUMAN  AND  THE  MONOT- 
ONOUS CITY  LOVELY "  146 

I  REMEMBER  HOW  ALLURING  IT  ALL  WAS  AT  THE  TIME      .      .          "          146 

A  FESTIVAL,  NO  MATTER  HOW  ORDINARY,  MUST  HAVE  ITS 

PARADE "  147 

AND  A  SHINTO  PRIEST,  NO  MATTER  HOW  LOWLY,  MUST  HAVE 

HIS  PRESTIGE "  147 

RED-LACQUERED  WAGONS,  EVERGREENS,  STRANGE  BANNERS, 

LIVING  DOVES — A  FUNERAL "  154 

IT  IS  NO  LONELY  ROAD  THE  JAPANESE  SOUL  HAS  TO  TRAVERSE 

ON  THE  WAY "  154 

LARGE  WREATHS  OF  FLOWERS  FROM  THE  MOURNERS  .  .  "  155 
THE  WHITE  SHROUDS  OF  THE  LIVING  SEEMED  AN  EMBLEM  OF 

LIFE  IN  DEATH "  155 

ON  NEW  YEAR'S  CARPENTERS  DANCE  OUT  THEIR  GRATITUDE 

FOR  PAST  WAGES  AND  PRESENT  GIFTS "  174 

ALL  THE  SYMBOLICAL  ADJECTIVES  ARE  TIED  UP  IN  THESE  NEW 

YEAR  DECORATIONS "  174 

WEIRD  MASKS  CONTRIBUTE  TO  THE  JOLLITY  OF  KYOTO'S  NEW  ^ 

YEAR'S "  175 

STREET-STANDS  SELLING  PARAPHERNALIA  FOR  HOUSEHOLD 

SHRINES "          175 

THE  BANKS  ARE  BLACK,  QUAGMIRE-LIKE:  THE  SQUALOR  MORE 

REAL  THAN  APPARENT "  IQO 

BY  NINE  A.M.  THEATER  STREET  WAS  AGOG  WITH  LIFE    ...      "       iqO 

FROM  ROOF  TO  ROOF  SHOPKEEPERS  HAD  ALREADY  DRAWN 

WHITE  CLOTH  STRIPS  TO  FILTER  THE  SUN'S  RAYS  ...  "  IQI 

AT  NARA  HUNDREDS  OF  DEER  ROAM  ABOUT — ARCH  MENDI- 
CANTS OF  THIS  EASY-GOING  WORLD "  222 

YET  SHE'D  DEFEND  THESE  LITTLE  EXPLOITERS  WITH  HER  LIFE      ' '       222 

THE  OLDEST  WOODEN  STRUCTURE  IN  THE  WORLD — HORIUJI 

PAGODA,  NEAR  NARA "  223 

JAPAN  SEEMS  ONE  LONG  VILLAGE  STREET  FROM  WHICH  THERE 

IS  NO  ESCAPE "  223 

SAID  TO  HAVE  NOBLE  BLOOD  IN  HIM,  BUT  JUST  AS  LIKELY 

AINO "          238 


xii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

DRONING    LAZILY    BENEATH    THEIR    DOMES    OF    STRAW    THEY 

STRAY  THROUGH  THE  STREETS  IN  SINGLE  FILE  BEGGING 

FOR  RICE Facing  P.  239 

HIDEYOSHl'S  TOMB  LOOKS  DOWN  THROUGH  THIS  TORII  UPON 

A  CITY  HE  ROSE  TO  RULE "  254 

THREE  HUNDRED  THOUSAND  KOREAN  EARS  AND  NOSES 

NOURISH  THESE  ALIEN  FLOWERS "  254 

LAKE  BIWA  LIES  STRETCHING  NORTHWARD,  COMPLETELY 

SURROUNDED  BY  MOUNTAINS "  255 

MINAMIZA,  THE  LARGEST  THEATER  IN  KYOTO,  UPON  THE  EAST 

BANK  OF  THE  KAMOGAWA "  255 

IN  SUMMER  THE  GODS  ARE  CHEATED  OF  THEIR  ALLOTMENT  OF 

SUFFERING  MORTALITY "  270 

THE  LIFE  OF  THE  NOMAD  PRIEST  IS  NOT  MERE  HISTORICAL 

CONSCIOUSNESS,  BUT  STERN  REALITY "  27! 

THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT  ARE  INCOMPATIBLE:  NOW,  WHEN 

THESE  PLAGUE-EXPULSION  CHARIOTS  PASS,  THE  TROLLEY 

WIRES  MUST  BE  CUT "  286 

FORTY  MEN  PULL  THESE  MASSIVE  CARTS  BY  TWO-INCH  ROPES 

ONE  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY  FEET  LONG "  287 

ESCORTS,  PULLERS,  DRIVERS,  CHANTING  AND  RINGING  HARSH 

BELLS,  DANCE  FANTASTIC  FAN-DANCES "  287 

EVEN  THE  HORSE  LOOKS  CONTEMPLATIVE  BEFORE  THE  VISION 

OF  FUJI "  302 

READY  FOR  THE  ASCENT  OF  FUJI "  303 

THE  SLOPE  IS  STEEP,  BUT  SHE  MUST  GET  THERE  ERE  SHE  DIES  ,  ' '  303 
SEVENTEEN  THOUSAND  PILGRIMS  MADE  THE  SUMMIT  OF  FUJI 

THAT  SUMMER "  318 

PUNTS,  RAFTS,  AND  LIGHTERS  CROWD  THE  RIVER  AT  NAGOYA  "  318 
THE  SAMISEN  HAS  NO  MUSIC  IN  IT  BUT  REQUIRES  A  LONG  FACE  "  319 
AFFECTED  SORROW  FORGOTTEN  FOR  THE  MOMENT  ....  "  334 
WASHED  GARMENTS  HUNG  ON  BAMBOO  POLES  FROM  HOUSE  TO 

HOUSE  AND  SMELLED  OFFENSIVELY "  334 

WHEN  THE  LEAVES  HAVE  FALLEN  DAIKON  (RADISH)  ARE 

HUNG  OUT  TO  DRY  "  335 

THERE  STILL  IS  NO  SEWERAGE  SYSTEM  IN  ALL  JAPAN  .  .  "  335 
WITH  ALL  ITS  MODERNISM,  JAPAN  STILL  HAS  TIME  FOR  SUCH 

SLOW  METHODS "  35° 

AND  THERE  ARE  MEN  ENOUGH  TO  GIVE  THEIR  LIVES  TO  SUCH 

TASKS "  350 

THE  LIFE  OF  THE  WOMAN  TOILER  IN  JAPAN  IS  RUINOUS. 

THESE  WOMEN  ARE  PICKING  PEPPERS  WHICH  KEEP  THE 

NEIGHBORHOOD   SNEEZING "          35 1 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xiii 

WHERE  THE  PNEUMATIC  HAMMERS  WERE  THUNDERING  AWAY 

AT  THE  STEEL  HULL  OF  THE  SUPERDREADNOUGHT      .      .   Pacing  P.  366 

WHILE  THIS  PUMP  PUMPS  THE  FIRE  BURNS "       367 

BUT  THIS  INSTRUMENT  MIGHT  SCARE  IT  TO  DEATH     ...      "       367 

THIS  WAS  LEFT  OF  PART  OF  YOKOHAMA  AFTER  THE  FIRE     .      "       367 

THE  SOROBAN  (COUNTING-MACHINE)  RACE  PREPARING  THESE 

COMMERCIAL  STUDENTS  FOR  THE  RACE  TO  COME  .  .  "  382 

SEND-OFF  TO  YOUNG  CONSCRIPTS.  THOSE  WHO  DON'T  GET 
THE  "LUCKY"  NUMBERS  ARE  GIVEN  CONGRATULATION 
DINNERS  IN  SECRET "  383 

IN  THE  NO  THE  BLAZE  OF  COLOR,  THE  CROWDING  IN  OF  FABRICS 
OBLITERATING  THE  BODY  BUT  CREATING  FORM,  IS 
WITHOUT  PEER "  398 

IN  THE  NO  THE  SENSE  OF  MOTION,  THE  WORLD  OF  FLIGHT  IS 
BROUGHT  WITHIN  THE  MOST  UNYIELDING  OF  LIMITATIONS 
WITHOUT  LOSING  THE  ESSENCE  OF  SWIFTNESS  ...  "  399 

THE  GOLDEN  PAVILION  NEAR  KYOTO  IS  THE  SYMBOL  OF  TEN- 
NOISM,  ONCE  ECLIPSED  BY  THE  USURPING  SHOGUN,  NOW 
REDEDICATED  TO  TENNOISM  "  430 

CERTAINLY  NO  PLACE  IN  JAPAN  IS  SO  RICH  IN  HIDDEN 
STREAMS,  COVERING  FORESTS  AND  RUGGED  MOUNTAINS, 
AS  IS  NIKKO "  431 

NO  IMAGE  IN  ALL  JAPAN  IS  MORE  HUMAN  AND  LIFELIKE  THAN 

THE  GIANT  BUDDHA  AT  KAMAKURA "  446 

ISE — THE  FOUNTAINHEAD  OF  SHINTOISM.  EVERY  TWENTY 
YEARS  THESE  SHACKS  ARE  REBUILT — AND  HAVE  BEEN 
FOR  TWENTY-FIVE  CENTURIES "  447 


PREFACE 

NOTWITHSTANDING  that  there  is  already  a  bibliog- 
raphy of  works  on  Japan  as  large,  if  not  larger  than  this 
volume,  I  make  no  apologies  for  offering  it  to  the  public. 
Nations  completely  change  their  tissues  every  few  years 
just  as  our  bodies  change  their  skins,  and  Japan  to-day 
is  not  what  it  was  before  the  fateful  days  of  1914.  The 
only  explanation  I  think  the  public  is  right  in  demanding 
concerns  the  point  of  view  from  which  the  writer  has 
approached  his  subject.  And  this  I  make  readily. 

The  slogan  "Go  West"  had  its  effects  on  me.  I  went 
west  at  the  time  the  anti- Japanese  sentiment  stirred 
California  to  action.  I  started  on  "farther"  west 
when  the  present  Emperor  of  Japan  ascended  the  throne, 
but  was  held  up  in  Honolulu,  Hawaii,  for  want  of 
steamship  accommodation.  There  I  caught  my  first 
glimpse  of  the  life  of  the  Japanese,  his  inability  to  mix 
with  other  races,  and  his  aggressiveness.  Unable  to 
secure  passage,  I  changed  my  course  within  an  hour  of 
the  arrival  of  the  Niagara  at  Honolulu,  and  sailed  for 
Australia.  I  broke  my  journey  at  Fiji,  where  I  saw 
another  mixture  of  races — the  native,  the  Indian,  and 
the  whites.  I  turned  north  again  to  Samoa,  the  home  of 
R.  L.  S.,  where  again  this  mixture  obtains.  Then  I 
sailed  on  to  New  Zealand.  There,  instead  of  spending 
just  a  few  weeks,  I  remained  a  year,  again  interesting 
myself  in  the  linking  of  races,  the  mixture  of  the  Maories 
with  the  English.  I  tramped  New  Zealand  from  end  to 
end,  and  then  set  off  for  Australia,  where  I  remained  six 
months.  The  anti- Japanese  sentiment  there  brought 
me  face  to  face  with  the  problem  again. 


PREFACE 

But  one  thing,  and  one  alone,  lured  me  on — the 
Orient.  Often  unutterably  weary  of  the  way,  I  was 
ready  to  turn  home;  but  I  had  not  seen  the  East.  So 
to  the  East  I  went,  skirting  the  Australian  coast  along 
the  Great  Barrier  Reef,  anchoring  over  its  dangerous 
shallows  for  two  nights  and  sailing  on  over  a  sea  it  was 
a  pity  to  disturb;  Sundaying,  which  is  no  picnic,  at 
Thursday  Island;  zigzagging  through  sea  after  sea  till 
we  arrived  at  Manila,  in  the  Philippines.  Twenty-six 
days  it  took  us.  For  another  two  we  rocked  on  the 
China  Sea — and  reached  Hongkong.  It  was  China  I 
had  been  after,  but  fate  said  Japan,  with  just  a  squint 
at  Shanghai.  And  Japan  it  was  for  twenty-six  months. 

Thus,  having  seen  forty  thousand  miles  of  the  Pacific 
I  feel  that  my  approach  to  Japan  justifies  my  present 
work.  I  do  not  claim  any  originality  in  sources.  Credit 
is  due  to  the  works  of  Brinkley,  Chamberlain,  Murdoch, 
Aston,  and  others  whose  researches  have  opened  the  shell 
of  Japanese  historical  seclusion.  But  I  limited  myself  to 
authorities.  I  purposely  avoided  descriptive  writers — 
including  Lafcadio  Hearn — so  as  to  be  free  from  all 
bias  for  or  against  Japan.  To  the  pages  of  The  Japan 
Chronicle  I  owe  a  debt  which  can  never  be  repaid  for 
the  sane  and  just  light  they  throw  upon  the  daily  life 
and  thought  of  the  Japanese. 

There  is  none  other  to  whom  I  owe  an  acknowledg- 
ment— except  her  whose  name  stands  by  itself  in  dedi- 
cation— for  the  way  of  the  wanderer  is  a  lonely  one. 
But  to  Marjorie  Latta  Barstow  I  must  here  give  credit 
for  criticism,  encouragement,  and  for  checking  up  the 
use  of  pronouns  which  the  man  who  has  walked  by 
himself  finds  very  hard  to  keep  in  conventional  order. 

SYDNEY  GREENBIE. 

NOTE:  I  wish  to  thank  the  publishers  of  Harper's  Monthly,  Asia,  Out- 
look, World  Outlook,  and  Dial  for  permission  to  use  material  published 
by  them. 


Part    One 
IMPRESSIONISTIC 


JAPAN 

REAL   AND   IMAGINARY 


THE   INLAND   SEA 

was  quite  dark  when  the  Tamba  Mam,  en  route 
from  China,  suddenly  stopped  her  screws  and 
anchored  for  the  night  in  the  Straits  of  Shimo- 
noseki,  just  outside  the  harbors  of  Moji  and 
Shimonoseki.  Obedient  to  war  regulations, 
the  ship  could  not  enter  after  sundown,  though  she  was 
at  a  home  port.  Half  a  century  ago  other  regulations 
intending  to  prohibit  entry  were  in  force,  but  the  Jap- 
anese happened  to  have  misjudged  the  appellants. 
Though  simple  war-vessels,  the  medieval  forts  could  not 
deny  them.  The  challenge  culminated  in  the  Shimono- 
seki affair  and  in  the  opening  of  Japan  to  the  world. 
Real  Japan  was  as  much  of  a  prophecy  to  me  that  night, 
in  1917,  as  I  slept  on  the  waters  at  its  gates,  as  it  was 
to  those  others  in  1853.  While  forcing  the  gates  of 
this  empire  they  hadn't  the  slightest  notion  whether 
it  was  Beauty  or  Beast  they  sought  to  awaken.  I  have 
not  as  yet  made  the  discovery  myself.  The  next  few 
years  will  tell. 

So  there  we  lay  at  anchor,  up  against  that  pyramid  of 
dark-blue  shadows,  sheltered  behind  nothing  from  an 
imaginary  world.  Not  even  an  electric  light  upon 


4  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

which  to  focus  one's  memories!  All  day  long  they  had 
vouched  for  the  blue  beyond  being  Japan,  but  my  con- 
scious self  would  not  know  it.  But  at  dawn  I  realized 
why  I  had  not  inwardly  acknowledged  it.  From  behind 
the  land  came  the  rising  sun,  and  we  moved  behind  the 
land  into  a  harbor  full  of  massive  steamers  whose  rising 
smoke  made  me  think  of  the  magician  in  Aladdin's  lamp. 
What  sort  of  wonders  were  to  reveal  themselves  in  this 
strange  land? 

Moji  lay  huddling  to  the  shore  at  our  right;  Shimo- 
noseki,  at  our  left.  We  were  now  right  in  the  midst  of 
activity,  yet  it  did  not  seem  Oriental.  How  wildly  dif- 
ferent it  had  been  at  Hongkong  and  Shanghai,  with  the 
swarming  masses  of  humanity,  each  alive  to  his  own  re- 
sponsibilities to  himself,  each  trying  to  outdo  the  other 
in  the  shouting  struggle  for  existence.  Not  so  here. 
The  launches  that  crowded  about  us  seemed  to  move  as 
though  by  command  from  a  central  office,  as  though  on  an 
efficiency  parade,  and  the  girl  coal-heavers  who  were 
brought  alongside  upon  a  lighter  laden  with  coal  sud- 
denly formed  a  line  like  a  string  of  soldier-ants  and 
commenced  a  rapid  series  of  dips  and  risings  which 
transferred  their  broken  cargo  into  the  bunkers  in  a 
perfect  stream  of  little  baskets. 

Upon  the  ship  itself  another  such  process  of  change 
was  going  on.  Tightly  girthed  and  shod  in  close-fitting 
sock-like  shoes  called  tabi  which  seemed  to  have  been 
sewed  on  and  kept  on  till  usage  should  wear  them  off, 
hundreds  of  little  men,  small  but  well  built,  sprightly 
and  pouncing  in  their  movements,  jumped  about  the 
deck  in  eager  pursuit  of  cargo  or  baggage.  One  is  aware 
that  little  escapes  them.  They  seem  so  far-seeing  and  so 
detective-like.  They  may  be  silent,  but  they  are  not 
good  pretenders.  Such  faces  always  put  one  on  his 
guard. 

I  cannot  recall  our  delivery.     What  Japanese  Moses 


THE  DIVINE  PARENTS  5 

led  us  out  of  the  wilderness  of  officialism  I  cannot  say. 
I  do  not  know  whether  we  were  examined  by  the  doctor 
or  not,  questioned  by  a  devotee  of  the  English  tongue, 
or  required  to  speak  and  write  at  least  one  Oriental 
language.  I  should  have  failed.  But  that  was  before 
America  entered  the  war.  Until  then  Japan  didn't 
take  the  war  seriously.  All  I  remember  is  that 
though  in  possession  of  only  an  Australian  Com- 
monwealth Emergency  Permit,  good  no  farther  than 
Hongkong,  instead  of  my  American  passport,  I  found 
myself  clipping  along  over  the  water  early  in  the 
morning,  bound  first  for  Shimonoseki,  and  then  for 
Moji. 

Our  little  launch  moved  about  within  a  harbor  thick 
with  fishing-vessels.  Their  sail-less  masts  swayed  with 
the  impatience  of  the  swells,  as  though  eager  to  be  tested 
before  the  winds.  But  they  were  lashed — and  soon  so 
were  we — lashed  to  the  shore  and  to  Japan. 

It  is  not  often  that  the  day  permits  of  greater  illusive 
beauty  than  that  which  the  night  amasses.  But  that 
is  the  way  of  Japan.  Such  painstaking  details  so  deli- 
cately done  reveal  themselves  only  in  sunlight.  The 
hills  at  night  are  not  more  than  other  hills;  by  dawn 
they  become  terraced  shrines,  stepping-stones  to  heaven. 
And  more  intimate  contact  changes  them  from  shrines 
to  life-giving  and  life-sustaining  verities.  Obviously 
Izanagi  and  Izanami,  the  divine  creators  of  these  islands, 
had  a  well-developed  sense  of  placing,  such  as  would 
interest  travelers.  With  the  Straits  of  Shimonoseki  here 
in  the  western  end  of  the  archipelago  leading  into  the 
Inland  Sea  and  on  through  that  and  out  again  to  Yoko- 
hama, due  east,  one  never  fails  to  realize  that  one  has 
truly  arrived  at  the  place  where  the  world  opens  to  the 
sun. 

From  hearsay  one  generally  gleans  one's  prejudices. 
Because  of  muffled  reports,  I  was,  before  knowing 


6  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

it,  almost  chilled  toward  Japan.  But  the  moment 
one  sets  foot  on  its  soil  preconceived  aversions  van- 
ish. Everything  is  so  strange,  so  obvious,  so  deli- 
cately appealing.  Streets?  There  are  no  streets.  The 
houses  are  but  stage  -  settings  for  moving  pictures, 
too  small  for  grown-ups  and  too  large  for  dolls.  The 
paper  doors  and  windows  could  keep  out  only  a  make- 
believe  thief,  and  the  upper  balconies  would  never 
separate  a  healthy  Romeo  from  his  Juliet.  What  a 
town  to  tarry  in! 

The  quaintness  of  an  early  Japan  still  loiters  about 
Moji.  The  dark-gray  roof  tiles,  the  charred  outer  walls, 
the  crowded  intimacy,  the  terraced  hills  which  since 
time  immemorial  have  been  nursed  and  exploited  in 
small  holdings — these  things  do  not  change  so  rapidly. 
Yet  they  are  going.  Newer  buildings,  of  concrete  and 
longer  promise,  indicate  what  is  coming  over  Moji. 
With  its  "cellars"  full  of  coal  deposits  and  itself  the 
center  of  Asiatic  and  American  navigation,  how  long 
will  it  be  before  the  old  Moji,  living  in  history,  will  be 
forgotten  of  men?  The  hills  curve  round  the  bay  and 
almost  close  it  in.  But  the  thick,  low-hanging  smoke 
from  factory  and  steamer  acclaims  the  change  under 
which  the  port  is  laboring. 

Through  the  early  morning  hours  under  the  chill  low 
clouds  the  village  shuts  its  eyes  in  sleep  deceptively. 
Moji  steals  another  wink  from  the  vault  of  time.  Here 
and  there  men  huddle  over  their  wooden  fire-boxes 
(hibachi),  warming  their  toes  and  fingers.  A  paper 
sliding-door  (shoji),  light  and  slender,  is  pushed  aside, 
a  face  peeps  out — and  coal-dust,  granite-gray  Moji  is 
nearly  awake. 

I  had  taken  up  my  tour  of  inspection  with  three  pas- 
sengers— a  Japanese  and  two  Chinese.  We  came  upon 
the  main  thoroughfare,  a  rather  wide,  open  street  with 
a  track  upon  which  at  odd  hours  rolled  a  lumbering 


PARKS  AND  CHURCHES  7 

big  trolley-car.  Following  it  on  to  the  right,  we  lost 
ourselves  in  one  of  the  by-streets.  Here  stood  an  un- 
painted  structure,  by  no  means  a  home,  yet  certainly 
not  a  factory.  It  was  a  school. 

One  would  hardly  have  thought  breakfast  could  pos- 
sibly have  been  over,  but  there  were  the  youngsters,  all 
in  school,  reading  their  lessons  from  books  held  at  arm's 
length  above  the  level  of  their  eyes.  Their  three  thou- 
sand wooden  clogs  or  straw  sandals  were  neatly  set  in 
pairs  out  upon  the  walk  in  the  courtyard,  waiting  for 
as  many  feet  to  put  them  to  flight.  A  gentleman  in 
house  slippers  greeted  us.  Before  being  permitted  to 
enter,  however,  we  were  asked  to  remove  our  shoes  and 
put  on  similar  slippers — which  are  neither  comfortable 
nor  graceful.  We  made  the  rounds.  Cleanliness  was 
the  outstanding  feature  of  the  place,  yet  it  was  not 
without  offensive  odors,  owing  to  absence  of  sanitation, 
and  the  children  with  catarrhs,  poor  things,  were  any- 
thing but  clean  and  tidy. 

From  the  gate  it  looks  like  a  single  building  with  stone 
steps  leading  up  through  it.  But  these  steps  run  against 
the  hillside  through  another  structure  slightly  above  it 
into  a  third.  A  museum,  a  library,  laboratories;  and 
there  is  even  one  room  in  which  the  eyes  and  general 
health  of  the  tots  are  seen  to  by  visiting  physicians. 
Yet  the  buildings  were  certainly  not  meant  to  be  warm 
and  comfortable. 

The  way  of  the  real  wanderer  is  never  certain  and 
sometimes  dull.  Having  no  plans  nor  guides  and 
pamphlets  to  direct  him,  he  misses  many  things.  But 
he  also  runs  across  others  when  least  expecting  them. 
Strolling  through  the  town,  watching,  making  mental 
notes  (for  it  is  forbidden  to  have  a  camera,  sketch-book, 
or  pen  and  paper  anywhere  within  seven  thousand 
yards  of  the  outer  circle  of  a  fortified  district  in  Japan), 
we  came  to  what  seemed  the  end  of  all  things,  but  which 


8  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

was  really  only  the  beginning.  Up  a  road  to  the  left, 
passing  one  or  two  fine-looking  residences,  we  came  to  a 
stone  tor ii  (gate)  marking  the  entrance  to  the  park. 
Within  the  park,  our  Japanese  companion,  approaching 
a  simple  wooden  shacklike  structure,  took  off  his  hat, 
bowed,  and  clapped  his  hands.  A  shrine. 

Then,  as  from  "an  ethereal  source  out  of  regions  un- 
known," came  a  little  stream.  Narrow  steps  directed 
us  upward;  a  tiny  lake;  reflections;  tranquillity  and 
peace,  reality  and  promise.  Little  level  plateaus  for 
children  to  play  on.  All  the  artifices  of  a  race  given  to 
rigorous  economy  have  made  this  ravine  a  lovely  re- 
treat. Just  a  pathway,  a  little  bridge,  a  dam  in  the 
right  place — and  we  have  a  world  in  miniature  within  a 
wonderful  world. 

We  returned  to  the  town,  but,  being  with  Orientals, 
not  to  loiter  about  the  streets.  At  the  other  end  of 
Moji,  a  gorgeous  temple  stands  at  the  approach  to  the 
hill.  To  the  right,  a  path  winds  and  zigzags  its  way 
upward.  Tiny  shrines  with  porcelain  puppets  people 
the  ascent. 

"Do  you  believe  in  these  little  gods?"  I  asked  one  of 
the  Chinese.  "No,"  he  answered,  with  the  suggestion 
of  a  sneer.  But  the  Japanese  does  not  falter.  To  him 
gods  are  real  gods. 

At  last  we  came  to  a  loftier  shrine,  and  be  it  pagan, 
Mohammedan,  Buddhist,  or  Christian — before  that 
shrine  all  men  must  worship — not  excluding  the  agnostic. 
The  beautiful  none  dares  deny.  One  may  not  love  it 
ardently  enough  to  climb  a  hill  for,  but  once  there,  the 
heart  utters  involuntary  adoration.  By  the  path,  by 
the  shelter,  by  the  fact  that  an  old  couple  have  found  it 
worth  their  while  to  keep  a  hut  and  a  larder  and  Japanese 
tea — by  all  these  signs  it  is  evident  that  the  visitors 
are  many. 

And  what  is  this  shrine?    A  quick-descending  hill,  a 


THERE  ARE  SHRINES  AND  SHRINES          9 

quickly  rising  promontory,  an  open  space  with  a  tran- 
quil sea,  sailboats  floating  out  to  a  clear  beyond,  a 
valley  studded  with  little  homes  led  a  sober  chase-  on 
into  another  valley  by  a  broad,  winding  road — and 
distance  as  delicate  as  heaven. 

"When  one  sits  for  a  moment  here  one  soon  forgets 
everything  else  in  life,"  said  the  Japanese.  And  all 
were  silent.  On  shipboard  the  night  before,  he  had 
been  drinking  heavily,  to  the  horror  of  the  Salvation 
Army  lassie.  I  wonder  what  she  would  have  said  had 
she  seen  him  here.  A  nature  worshiper?  That  was  my 
first  lesson  in  Shintoism;  and  my  first  view  of  the  Inland 
Sea.  After  an  hour  of  silence,  each  nursing  his  own 
feelings,  we  descended  in  the  opposite  direction  amid 
tiny  but  neat  little  homes,  palaces  and  dirty  huts,  too. 
We  were  soon  back  in  town  again. 

The  railroad  station!  Shuffling  crowds  with  wooden 
clogs  held  firm  by  rope  between  the  big  and  little  toes, 
clattering  away;  a  variety  of  costumes,  capes  and 
kimonos;  a  woman  carrying  a  heavy  suitcase  slung 
across  her  back  and  balanced  by  a  weighty  package  in 
front,  while  two  empty-handed  men  walked  at  her 
sides.  A  thousand  babies. 

Thus  we  have  the  Moji  as  it  was  in  the  sixth  year  of 
Taisho  (1917).  We  see  it  from  above  as  a  flat,  crescent- 
shaped  village,  dark  gray  tiles  on  the  roofs,  somber 
throughout — reaching  out  into  the  water.  We  see  it 
again  from  the  ship,  at  sundown,  partly  black  with  coal- 
dust,  partly  gray  with  granite-dust,  climbing  a  little 
up  the  hillside.  About  it  stand  the  peaks;  the  heavy 
smoke  floats  over  the  placid  bay.  Opposite,  lies 
Shimonoseki  and  the  railroad  insinuating  its  way  along 
to  Kobe,  Yokohama,  and  Tokyo:  behind  it  the  way  to 
Nagasaki. 

Our  ship  steers  north  by  northeast,  through  a  neck  of 
land  so  narrow  that  two  ships  could  not  pass  each  other — 


io  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

and  we  are  out  upon  the  Inland  Sea.  The  sun  has  set. 
Along  a  ridge  grows  a  line  of  flat-headed  pines  which 
simulate  a  tremendous  centipede.  The  sky-line  undu- 
lates, peak  after  peak,  and  range  behind  range  of  peaks. 
For  a  distance  they  surround  us  completely.  Ahead  of 
us,  straining  every  thread  before  the  breeze,  two  hun- 
dred sailing  vessels,  like  a  flock  of  lowering  swans,  press 
on  into  the  night.  Peaks  of  clouds  and  peaks  of  earth 
and  masts  upon  the  sea.  We  slip  into  their  midst; 
overtake  them;  and  then  escape  from  them.  Blazing 
fires  dance  upon  the  decks,  and  voices  reach  us  in 
undertones  of  song.  Then  complete  darkness  obliter- 
ates all. 

Next  day  we  move  upon  a  sea  as  smooth  and  glassy 
as  though  it  were  along  the  equator.  At  times  the  shore 
is  so  close  that  every  tree  is  clear,  and  some  almost 
within  reach.  Hundreds  of  little  bays  shelter  idle 
craft.  Islands  stud  the  sleeping  waters.  Then  the 
island,  which  has  thus  stolen  a  bit  of  the  sea,  extends 
his  grasp.  The  panorama  opens  out.  To  the  right, 
land  is  lost  sight  of.  All  day  long  we  push  through  this 
unreality,  this  misty  mysticism.  The  very  land  which 
makes  the  Inland  Sea  possible  is  as  unlike  land  as  thought 
is  unlike  emotion. 

And  as  one  slowly  glides  along,  one  forgets — only  to 
wake  up  with  a  start,  anchored  before  the  city  of  Kobe. 


LIKE  A  FLOCK  OF  LOWERING  SWANS,  THE    SAILING-VESSELS   PRESS  ON  INTO 

THE   NIGHT 


WHILE  THE  ROOTED  PINES  AFFECT  AN  ATTITUDE  OF  MOCKING 


KOBE  HARBOR  THICK  WITH   SAILLESS  MASTS,   SWAYING  WITH   THE   SWELLS 


IT   WAS    NOT    KOBE'S   FINISHED   FRONT   THAT    GAVE    IT   AN    APPEARANCE    OF 
SUCCESS,  BUT  ITS  UNFINISHED  STATE 


II 

A    TRANSIENT    IN    KOBE 

'OBE,  even  more  than  Moji,  was  blanketed 
in  smoke  with  nothing  distinctive  in  its 
topography.  Even  the  hills  which  back 
it  and  stretch  for  thirty  miles  were  packed 
with  mist.  The  Tamba  Marti  had  stopped 
out  in  the  harbor,  tied  to  a  tremendous  buoy,  as  were 
dozens  of  other  ocean  liners.  Here  too  a  launch  brought 
us  along  shore,  though  there  were  many  wiggling  sampans 
about  and  hundreds  of  sailing  vessels.  The  preponder- 
ance was  in  launches  and  tugs.  Tremendous  piers  jutted 
out  into  the  bay.  Our  little  captain  steered  us  toward 
one  of  these  at  the  left,  and  we  stepped  out  upon  the 
American  Hatoba. 

It  was  not  Kobe's  finished  front  that  gave  it  an  ap- 
pearance of  success,  but  its  unfinished  state.  The 
three-storied  structures,  foreign  banks  and  hotels  and 
steamship  companies'  offices  were  small  compared  with 
the  erections  beside  them.  These  latter  were  just 
slender  tree-trunks  tied  together  with  straw  rope  and 
curtained  with  straw  matting  to  inclose  the  building 
under  construction.  This  sheltering  struck  me  as  illus- 
trative of  the  nation's  past  and  its  present  way  of 
thinking  and  doing  things  more  or  less  under  cover. 
Not  deceitful,  but  just  a  little  bit  nervous  about  being 
seen.  Three  hundred  years  of  seclusion,  I  thought. 

The  first  impressions  of  a  man  with  white  skin  let 
loose  in  a  world  of  human  beings  of  sallow  complexion, 
with  seventy-five  cents  in  his  pocket  and  no  letter  of 


12  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

credit  nor  a  rich  father  to  cable  to,  are  not  very  cheerful. 
I  did  not  feel  like  the  mouse  when  it  sees  two  green  eyes 
at  its  hole;  I  felt  like  a  hungry  cat  looking  into  a  black 
hole  with  no  mouse  to  see.  Two  suitcases  full  of  clothes, 
from  a  light  jacket  used  in  the  tropics  to  a  complete 
full-dress  outfit,  with  other  minor  possessions,  such  as 
books  and  papers,  would,  had  I  known,  have  made  quite 
an  impression  had  I  donned  them  and  strutted  about 
the  streets.  A  brown  felt  hat  would  not  have  been  an 
unusual  climax  to  a  dress-suit  in  Oriental  eyes.  But 
how  was  I  to  know?  So  I  kept  to  a  dark  suit  with  tan 
shoes  and  brown  hat,  passing  for  respectability  itself, 
in  Japan,  as  I  had  done  elsewhere.  Now,  to  be  broke, 
cracked  clean  through  and  all  finance  leaked  out,  yet 
well-dressed,  would  have  been  nothing  to  romance  about 
in  America.  There  it's  common  enough.  Nor  would 
the  picture  be  remarkable — if  I  had  been  in  threadbare 
clothes  and  broke,  in  a  strange  land.  But  to  be  broke 
in  Japan,  unhonored  and  unknown,  yet  with  good  clothes 
not  only  on  one's  back  but  all  over  one's  body — that  is 
something  to  which,  as  far  as  I  know,  I  am  the  only  one 
who  can  confess. 

And  there  lay  the  whole  of  the  Japanese  Empire  at  my 
feet,  to  be  taken  and  enjoyed.  My  situation  compelled 
me,  however,  to  enter  without  blare  of  trumpet.  I 
learned  from  a  foreigner  on  Division  Street,  which  leads 
into  the  city  from  the  pier,  that  there  was  a  small 
Japanese  hotel  into  which  a  respectable  white  man 
might  go  without  losing  caste.  Every  hotel  or  boarding- 
house  run  for  and  by  foreigners  was  crowded.  Accom- 
modation was  not  to  be  found  at  any  price — not  even 
at  seventy-five  cents.  Not  having  come  to  Japan  with 
the  expectation  of  living  in  marble  halls,  I  was  not 
disappointed  at  finding  myself  before  a  black-stained 
house  with  bulging  iron  window-bars,  and  grated,  glass 
sliding  doors. 


A  BI-NATIONAL  13 

The  proprietor  looked  dubious.  Would  I  put  up 
with  Japanese  conditions?  "My  place  so  dirty,"  he 
assured  me.  Yet  I  had  to  remove  my  shoes  before  I 
could  ascend  the  steep  stairs  to  the  narrow  hall  above. 
The  floors  were  as  immaculate  and  as  polished  as  a 
table.  The  room  to  which  I  was  led  was  at  the  extreme 
end  of  the  building.  It  was  small,  its  walls  were  plas- 
tered, its  window  was  narrow.  It  was  foreign  in  every 
detail  but  the  straw  mats  upon  the  floor.  A  cushion  to 
sit  upon  and  a  brazier  for  company — and  Buddhist 
was  never  placed  in  a  more  favorable  situation  for  re- 
flection. I  was  left  alone.  My  entreaties  to  be  per- 
mitted to  eat  with  the  rest  were,  if  understood,  deftly 
evaded.  And  that  was  my  first  lesson  in  how  to  be 
happy  though  lonely  in  a  Japanese  inn. 

It  was  early  spring,  and  that,  in  Japan,  is  synonymous 
with  rain.  So  I  remained  in  that  room  as  long  as  I 
could  stand  it,  and  then  went  out  for  a  stroll.  When  I 
returned,  every  one  seemed  delighted  with  the  foreign 
guest.  Even  the  male  attendants  were  affable.  No 
sooner  had  I  reached  my  room  than  a  little  maid  came 
to  light  the  gas-jet  (an  unusual  way  of  lighting  in  new 
Japan)  and  to  bring  a  tray  of  tea  things  and  some  tea. 
Upon  the  lacquer  tray  were  five  little  cups,  as  many 
copper  autumn-leaf  saucers,  a  stippled-iron  pot  of  hot 
water,  a  small  china  teapot,  and  a  water  cooler — the 
standard  Japanese  tea  set.  I  thought  that  at  last  I  was 
to  have  company,  but  I  learned  otherwise.  The  process 
of  feeding  me  was  provokingly  ceremonious.  One 
wants  to  eat  like  a  healthy  animal,  not  like  a  suspicious 
Czar.  It  was  tantalizing  to  taste  a  few  cakes — and  then 
to  sit  and  wait.  And  the  ceremonial  respect  of  the  two 
maids,  their  kneeling  and  their  shyness  were  made 
tolerable  by  their  dipping  into  their  sleeves  for  laughter 
from  which  they  could  not  restrain  themselves. 

The  arrangements  had  been  that  I  was  to  eat  Japanese 


i4  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

food.  It  was  brought  to  me  in  a  series  of  trays  and  jour- 
neys and  pressed  upon  me  with  such  good  grace  that  I 
lost  all  track  of  its  variety.  Rice  was  kept  steaming 
hot  in  a  round  wooden  container.  I  was  well  pleased 
with  the  bill  of  fare,  though  I  winced  at  more  than  one 
of  the  courses. 

As  soon  as  I  had  finished,  the  two  maids  withdrew 
and  for  some  little  time  I  was  again  alone,  left  to  nurse 
my  future  prospects.  The  door  was  gently  pushed 
aside  and  the  little  maid  ushered  in  a  tall,  robust, 
westernized  individual. 

"Excuse  me,  may  I  come  in?"  he  said  most  graciously. 

"Of  course,  do,"  I  said,  with  not  a  little  feeling.  And 
without  further  ado  he  doubled  his  sturdy  legs  under 
him  and  squatted  down  before  me.  The  little  maid 
sat  down  a  little  farther  to  the  rear,  her  face  all  wonder 
at  the  sounds  she  heard. 

"You  are  American,"  he  said,  proud  of  being  able  to 
distinguish  one  foreigner  from  another.  "I  lived  nine 
years  in  America.  I  came  back  to  visit  my  father." 
He  made  no  mention  of  mother,  I  noticed.  Then  I 
learned  that  he  was  from  Yamaguchi,  a  place  then  as 
vague  in  my  understanding  as  would  be  a  sound  in  high 
treble  meant  to  be  the  name  of  a  village  on  Mars.  But 
still,  it  added  something  to  my  Nipponese  impressions. 
He  was  waiting  impatiently  for  his  steamer  to  sail  and 
take  him  back  to  America.  From  him  I  made  the 
discovery  that  I  had  fallen  into  a  hotel  crowded  with 
emigrants  bound  for  the  States,  or,  like  himself,  re- 
turning. So  there  I  was,  a  vagabonding  American 
thrown  right  into  the  midst  of  bi-national  life  in  Japan, 
in  a  hotel  essentially  Japanese,  but  having  a  "foreign" 
room  and  occupied  by  migratory  human  beings  like 
myself.  That  was  my  first  point  of  contact  with 
Japan. 

I  slept  through  that  night  without  much  comfort. 


TWO  HIGH  WALLS,  TWO  DEEP  OPEN'  GUTTERS — A  KODE  STREET 


IXTKRNEI)  GARDENS  AND  LIBERATED  TELEGRAPH  POLES  AND  BLACK  GARBAGE 

BOXES 


BED  AND   BREAD  15 

The  heavy,  ponderous  quilts  (two  of  them)  were  more 
than  I  could  endure.  They  were  conquerors  of  cold,  to 
be  sure,  but  lacked  snugness,  and  being  without  sheets 
made  me  rather  loath  to  treat  them  too  intimately. 

I  breakfasted  on  rice  and  raw  eggs,  and  a  kind  of  solu- 
tion called  coffee.  Both  sleeping  and  feeding  were  relished 
more  as  experience  than  as  delight,  however.  Because 
I  hadn't  despatched  all  that  had  been  placed  at  my  dis- 
posal, the  proprietor  took  it  for  granted  that  I  didn't 
enjoy  Japanese  food.  Consequently,  my  evening  meal 
was  ultra-foreign  and  afforded  me  my  first  experience  in 
Japanese  modernism.  It  is  said  that  when  the  great 
westernization  wave  swept  over  the  country,  bread 
became  one  of  the  fads.  But  the  fashion  subsided  as 
quickly  as  it  appeared.  The  explanation  is  not  difficult 
to  fathom,  for  the  dispensation  which  the  Japanese  call 
pan  must  have  been  too  strong  for  even  a  Japanese 
stomach  and  as  heavy  as  on  the  day  it  was  kneaded. 
So  here,  when  the  little  girls  began  to  serve  me  with 
"foreign"  food  on  dirty  dishes,  cold  steak  and  greasy 
onions,  coffee  in  a  dirty  tin  teapot,  I  balked. 

I  labored  all  that  evening  trying  to  make  the  whole 
establishment,  including  two  clerks,  two  maids,  half-a- 
dozen  guests  led  by  my  worthy  stalwart  Americanized 
Japanese,  understand  that,  though  I  did  want  European 
(or  rather  American)  food  when  it  was  genuine,  in  this 
case  I  preferred  their  own.  Finally  they  understood, 
but  in  their  effort  to  please  and  to  preserve  my  interest 
they  had  become  not  a  little  stiff.  I  could  not  tell 
what  had  happened  or  how  I  had  scattered  these  timid 
creatures,  and  endeavored  to  show  myself  eager  to  enter 
their  ways  and  eliminate  strangeness.  But  they  would 
beat  a  hasty  retreat  immediately  after  serving  me,  and 
I  saw  that  real  sociability  is  not  to  be  found  at  any 
public  inns  of  Japan.  Every  group  has  its  own  room, 
and,  unless  you  hire  geisha,  you  must  spend  your  time 
2 


16  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

in  solitary  confinement — for  there  is  no  public  gathering 
place  in  a  Japanese  hotel. 

So  there  was  left  for  me  but  one  solution — to  wander 
the  streets.  From  the  very  first  night  I  was  driven  out 
upon  the  streets  for  recreation.  Fortune  had  been  with 
me.  I  learned  from  a  foreign  resident  that  a  foreign 
firm  required  assistance  and  made  my  application. 
That  was  Saturday  afternoon.  I  was  to  make  my  ap- 
pearance on  the  job  on  Monday.  Otherwise,  I  should 
not  have  known  that  it  was  Sunday.  There  wasn't  the 
least  letup  in  activity.  Wandering  along  the  unpaved 
streets,  I  met  one  of  the  men  from  the  Eastern,  the 
steamer  on  which  I  had  come  up  from  Australia,  and 
together  we  made  our  way  about  Kobe.  There  was 
nothing  definite  to  lead  one  anywhere,  so  that  all  one 
could  do  was  to  wander.  No  matter  which  way  we 
went,  we  seemed  always  to  come  out  in  the  same  place 
from  which  we  started.  Upon  a  corner  stood  a  dirty, 
scraggly  little  shrine;  there,  off  at  the  end  of  the  street, 
stood  a  greater  shrine.  It  was  grassless,  gravelly,  and 
disorderly.  The  buildings  were  unpainted  and  meaning- 
less. We  stopped  before  one  little  shed  in  which  stood 
a  white-surpliced  priest,  his  flowing  robes  filled  with  the 
wind,  his  feet  set  in  black,  shiny,  lacquered,  wooden 
shoes,  his  head  covered  by  a  black,  shiny,  lacquered, 
paper  cap  like  a  cross  between  an  "overseas"  cap  and  a 
silk-hat.  By  using  the  words  ' '  Buddhist ' '  and  ' '  Shinto ' ' 
in  a  belabored  fashion,  I  succeeded  in  learning  a  little 
bit  less  than  I  could  have  guessed  without  labor. 

But  what  I  learned  at  the  home  of  a  foreigner  that  day 
was  not  more  illuminating.  I  resented  what  seemed  to 
me  the  prejudices  of  the  foreign  resident  against  the 
Japanese.  Race  prejudice,  I  felt,  was  never  justifiable. 
I  determined  to  have  no  more  to  do  with  foreigners 
residing  in  Japan  than  I  could  possibly  help.  I  did  not 
want  to  fall  under  the  influence  of  Occidental  thought. 


JAPANESE  EMIGRANTS  17 

Whatever  impressions  I  was  to  gain  were  to  be  my 
own. 

And  so,  as  ordinary  as  it  seems  to  me  now,  I  remember 
how  alluring  it  all  was  at  the  time.  I  remember  that 
my  companion,  knowing  my  circumstances  and  my  pil- 
grimage, in  sympathy  with  my  attitude  to  life,  stood  off 
and  looked  at  me  somewhat  inquiringly  as,  when  we 
passed  a  gateway  to  a  new  native  residence,  I  went  up 
to  it  and  spoke  eulogistically  of  its  architectural  fineness, 
even  of  the  absence  of  paint  as  being  praiseworthy.  I 
remember  how  we  wandered  down  into  the  foreign  settle- 
ment, so  called,  with  its  sidewalks  and  square  buildings, 
expressing  my  regret  at  what  was  coming  over  Japan. 
Commercialism!  Japan  is  becoming  commercialized,  I 
expounded.  The  rows  and  rows  of  three-story  buildings, 
the  godowns  filled  with  goods,  the  wide  avenues!  And 
yet,  when  I  stood  upon  the  Hatoba  again  and  waved 
him  farewell  as  he  moved  off  in  the  launch  back  to  his 
ship,  back  to  his  own  country  down  below  the  line,  back 
to  Australia  which  had  been  foreign  to  me  and  distaste- 
ful, he  called  to  me,  "Won't  you  change  your  mind  and 
come  away  with  me?"  And  I  remember  that  the 
friendly  invitation  moved  me,  for  though  I  determined 
to  remain,  still  his  offer  to  take  me  back  among  white 
people  left  an  enduring  impression  on  my  mind — a 
feeling  of  world  fellowship. 

Returning,  alone,  to  the  shopping  street,  I  felt  exceed- 
ingly lonely.  In  the  midst  of  the  confusion,  the  side- 
walk-less streets,  the  luxurious  wares,  the  nagging 
'rikisha  men  who  wanted  to  take  me  everywhere  for  a 
little  bit  more  than  nothing — what  resuscitated  remnants 
of  the  old  Japan  I  had  heard  of  on  the  winds  of  the  world ! 
I  was  somewhat  dazed,  yet  struggled  faithfully  to  live 
up  to  the  adoration  I  had  been  assured  the  country 
inspires.  And  I  remember  returning  to  my  little  hotel 
that  night  with  a  strange  feeling  of  inadequacy,  like  a 


i8  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

man  disappointed  in  heaven.  Yet  I  was  not  unfavorably 
impressed.  Only  there  was  something  lacking — no  real 
thrill. 

I  didn't  like  the  foreign  room  in  which  I  had  been 
stalled.  Through  the  gracious  emigrant  I  made  my 
request  for  accommodation  more  in  Japanese  style  and 
soon  found  myself  in  just  the  atmosphere  I  was  after. 
It  was  exactly  ten  feet  square  and  eight  feet  high,  a  gray, 
painted  mud  wall  on  one  side  to  show  that  it  was  real  and 
the  other  three  walls  of  paper.  The  thin  strips  of  wood 
crossing  each  other  and  pasted  over  with  white  paper 
fitted  into  a  frame  which  is  called  a  door  or  a  window,  as 
you  will.  Then  beneath  were  the  four  and  a  half 
tatami — soft,  straw  mats  always  six  feet  by  three,  by 
two  inches  thick.  There  is  an  elegance  and  luxurious- 
ness  in  a  Japanese  room  which  far  transcends  our  modern 
flat  profusions.  The  sense  of  leisure  pervading,  the  lack 
of  obvious  drudgery  in  the  way  of  cleaning,  are  far  more 
delightful  than  all  our  household  finery.  The  absence 
of  tawdry  trinkets  and  bric-a-brac  makes  the  room  more 
restful  than  one  accustomed  to  western  homes  imagines 
possible. 

We  are  prone  to  sneer  at  the  Japanese  custom  of  living, 
eating,  and  sleeping  in  the  same  room.  But  their  futon 
(quilts)  are  neatly  stored  in  closets  and,  in  whatever 
way  the  room  is  used,  for  that  time  it  bears  itself  accord- 
ing to  its  usage.  We  in  America  are  just  coming  to  that 
kind  of  economy  in  space.  Wall  beds  and  convertible 
couches,  modern  kitchenettes — what  are  they  but  similar 
innovations  ? 

Though  my  first  room  was  not  what  one  could  call 
"European,"  still  it  had  remained  as  a  barrier  between 
me  and  the  little  sallow  folk — servants  and  emigrant 
guests.  I  had  not  known  how  little  it  takes  to  shunt  off 
a  Japanese.  But  I  was  determined  to  overcome  their 
shyness.  This  I  found  more  possible  when  I  moved 


HUDDLING  19 

into  the  Japanese  room.  In  it  I  was  not  only  nearer 
physically,  but  socially. 

Though  it  was  a  public  hotel,  I  sometimes  thought 
only  relatives  patronized  it,  so  free  and  easy  were  they 
with  one  another.  One  night  the  tall  gentleman  pushed 
aside  my  paper  doors  without  knocking — as  is  the 
Japanese  way — and  asked  me  to  come  across  the  hall. 
The  girls  wanted  to  have  a  close  survey  of  their  future 
' '  countryman . ' '  Four  of  them  were  girls ;  one  a  married 
woman;  and  a  man  and  a  boy — all  the  occupants  of 
one  small  room.  We  spent  the  best  part  of  an  hour 
exchanging  "language"  lessons.  We  began:  "This  is  a 
mat,"  and  I  heard:  " Korewatatamidesu."  It  was  only 
my  extreme  patience  which  succeeded  in  getting  them 
to  say  it  slowly  enough  to  make  it  sound:  "Kore  wa 
tatami  desu. ' '  But  the  major  part  of  the  ' ' conversation ' ' 
was  in  fits  of  giggling  to  which  the  girls  abandoned 
themselves.  They  would  stuff  their  mouths  with  the 
long  square  sleeves,  or  roll  off  upon  the  mats  in  merry 
bashfulness.  Though  at  times  familiar,  they  were  never 
vulgar.  The  married  woman  was  more  reserved  than 
the  girls,  but  consequently  more  self-conscious.  With- 
out apology  she  moved  into  a  corner  of  the  room,  took 
out  her  materials  from  the  tiny  little  dresser  with  its 
slanting  mirror,  and  began  rouging  and  powdering  her 
face  before  it — and  all  of  us. 

They  seemed  to  have  no  particular  need  of  privacy. 
One  evening  I  came  in  rather  late  and  peeped  into 
their  room  through  the  crevices  left  by  the  ill  adjust- 
ment of  the  paper  doors  against  each  other.  The 
electric  light  was  on,  and  there  they  lay  upon  the  mats, 
eight  quilted  sleepers  on  eight  straw  mats — each  mat 
never  being  more  than  three  feet  wide,  or  the  size  of  a 
single  bed.  The  distribution  was  without  regard  to 
sex — though  no  two  slept  beneath  the  same  quilts.  But 
they  slept  quietly,  for  which  much  praise  be  given. 


20  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Bound  for  a  land  where  they  would  be  isolated  from 
their  own  people,  this  common  experience  seemed  to 
bring  them  close  together.  The  more  primitive  or  ele- 
mental people  are  the  less  can  they  endure  separation. 
Civilization  is  the  essence  of  isolation.  It  spells  ex- 
pansion, exclusion,  and  cold  aloneness.  There  was  I 
occupying  a  room  larger  than  that  in  which  eight  of  them 
found  ample  comfort.  What  delightful  associations  this 
closeness  must  have  given  them!  What  warmth,  what 
contact  of  man  with  man,  until  the  mass  finds  no  further 
use  for  "coming  together,"  and  they  emerge  as  one. 

This  huddling,  however,  is  not  typical  of  emigrants 
alone.  Nothing  affords  a  better  example  of  Oriental 
huddling  than  the  public  bath.  That  is  the  national 
rendezvous  for  prince  and  pauper.  The  tub  is  a  wooden 
box,  usually  square  and  about  four  feet  deep,  with  a 
ledge  to  sit  upon  inside  and  out.  The  Japanese,  whether 
in  the  bath,  at  prayer,  or  in  his  final  "tub"  at  burial, 
is  always  doubled  up  with  his  knees  at  his  chin.  When 
you  slip  down  into  the  water,  you  are  up  to  your  neck 
in  it.  I  am  sure  that  suddenly  to  immerse  a  skinned 
pig  in  one  of  these  baths  would  be  enough  to  make  him 
wiggle  and  squeal  again.  To  go  from  one  extreme  to 
another,  the  towel  is  about  the  size  and  texture  of  those 
used  on  a  four  weeks  old  baby.  When  they  called 
me  to  my  bath  the  first  time,  I  was  amazed  to  find  a 
coating  of  dust  upon  the  surface  and  felt  suspicious 
about  the  cleanliness  of  the  water.  I  skimmed  the  top 
and  got  in,  pretending  not  to  have  noticed.  I  soon 
discovered  that  the  gathering  was  not  there  without 
reason.  There  had  been  others  before  me.  I  asked 
that  thereafter  I  be  allowed  to  take  my  bath  first,  and 
received  a  promise  to  that  effect.  But  I  found  that  in 
almost  every  case  I  had  to  watch  carefully,  for  though 
the  servants  would  not  refuse,  they  would  try  to  deceive 
me.  At  the  bottom  of  it  all  was  the  fact  that  the 


THE  MORNING  WASH  21 

Japanese  guests,  willing  as  they  were  to  use  the  same 
water  with  a  dozen  other  native  strangers,  disliked  the 
idea  of  using  it  after  me — a  foreigner.  To  do  them 
justice,  their  use  of  the  same  water  is  not  an  unclean 
practice,  for  no  Japanese  ever  enters  the  tub  without 
previously  washing  and  soaping  himself  down  thor- 
oughly. During  the  two  weeks  I  remained  at  this  hotel 
I  saw  nothing  in  the  way  of  promiscuity  which  would 
justify  the  usual  reports. 

The  morning  wash  is  one  to  be  avoided  by  the  owner 
of  sensitive  ears.  That,  too,  is  communal,  and  takes 
place  before  a  copper  trough  with  running  water,  tiny 
faucets,  and  small  individual  movable  basins.  Each 
individual  appears  with  a  toothbrush  stuck  in  his  mouth 
as  though  it  were  a  pipe.  It  is  a  common  sight.  Dressed 
in  light  kimonos,  Japanese  men  will  be  seen  wandering 
along  the  streets  to  the  public  baths,  sucking  their 
powdered  brushes.  But  once  before  the  trough,  they 
scrub  as  though  it  were  the  first  time  in  a  week  the 
chance  has  been  given  them.  The  snorting  and  coughing 
and  splashing  and  spluttering  can  be  compared  only  to 
the  sporting  of  a  family  of  seals,  and  the  prize  for  noise 
goes  to  these  land  animals.  I  have  frequently  been 
wakened  by  the  sound  of  an  early  riser  at  his  veranda 
clearing  his  throat — and  he  had  a  hard  time  of  it. 

On  the  whole,  I  should  judge  that  these  emigrants  are 
as  good  a  type  as  will  be  found  anywhere  in  Japan. 
They  invariably  think  favorably  of  America,  and  seldom 
will  you  find  one  who  returns  to  Japan  without  planning 
to  go  again  to  America.  Generally  they  go  home  only 
for  a  visit. 

"I  came  back  to  Japan,"  one  emigrant  told  me,  "to 
try  to  start  a  business  on  the  American  system,  but  it's 
no  use.  It's  impossible  to  break  down  the  customs  and 
habits  of  our  people.  They  prefer  to  work  twelve  hours 
a  day  indifferently  rather  than  only  eight  but  more 


22  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

rapidly."  So  he  was  determined  to  return  to  America, 
where  he  now  felt  more  at  home. 

Then  a  lull  came  over  the  hotel.  Boxes  were  packed 
and  labeled.  Guests  were  all  out,  visiting  friends  for  the 
last  time.  One  small  boy  appeared  clad  in  American 
clothes  from  head  to  foot.  That  was  his  debut  into  his 
new  life.  Will  he  return  an  Oriental  or  an  American? 
Not  an  American — if  his  government  can  help  it.  I 
came  across  a  large  map  of  the  Western  states  of  America 
giving  the  number  of  Japanese  who  have  settled  in  the 
different  localities.  It  seems  certain  that  no  individual 
would  go  to  so  much  trouble  and  expense  to  keep  tab  on 
his  fellow-countrymen  abroad. 

After  a  fashion,  I  had  made  friends  with  these  people 
and  found  them  pleasant,  but  it  was  hard  to  secure  a 
common  basis  for  anything  like  permanent  friendship. 
At  first,  however,  I  thought  it  was  quite  possible  and 
encouraged  each  new  visitor. 

The  first  visitor  to  come  into  my  room  to  cheer  me  out 
of  my  loneliness  was  about  as  meek  and  humble  a  little 
person  as  I  have  ever  met.  He  seemed  bowed  down  by 
some  unutterable  sorrow,  as  though,  by  foul  mischance, 
the  ambition  of  his  life  had  been  frustrated.  If  I  would 
only  come  and  live  with  him,  he  said,  he  would  offer  me 
his  home  at  a  very  low  rate.  His  motives?  He  would 
have  me  around  all  the  time  and  improve  his  English 
while  he  would  teach  me  Japanese.  He  "guaranteed" 
me  thirty  scholars  at  two  yen  a  month. 

"The  way  Japanese  live  is  not  so  bad  as  foreigners  say 
it  is,"  he  wrote  me  in  a  note;  adding  that,  if  I  agreed, 
he  would  rent  a  large  house.  I  told  him  to  get  the 
house  (he  intended  to  move  anyway)  and  I  would  come 
and  visit  him,  and  then  decide.  He  did,  and  I  accepted 
his  invitation  to  call. 

All  this  time,  however,  he  was  working  for  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  hotel,  and  didn't  want  him  to  see  us 


WHAT  THE  MEEK  INHERIT  23 

together.  So,  when  we  started  for  his  house,  he  went  out 
first,  and  I  caught  up  with  him  later.  Though  he  was 
leading  the  way  and  I  was  a  total  stranger,  he  yielded  to 
my  every  unconscious  swerve.  If  I  mistook  his  sidling 
for  a  desire  to  turn,  he  would  turn  with  me,  and  several 
times  I  had  to  tell  him  to  hold  to  his  own  way.  At  last, 
after  a  most  circuitous  journey  within  tiny  narrow 
alleys,  like  burrow-runs,  we  came  to  the  little  fenced-in 
cottage.  Through  a  tiny  door  we  entered  the  tiny 
yard,  barren  of  beauty  as  a  witch;  then,  through 
another,  into  a  stone-floored  hall.  Here  we  removed 
our  shoes.  A  buxom  woman  bowed  admission  to  wife- 
hood  and  proceeded  to  prove  her  station  by  meekness 
and  by  silence.  The  bare  compartment,  measuring  no 
more  than  a  single  American  room  in  all,  but  here  com- 
prising three,  could  boast  of  no  other  sign  of  occupancy 
than  two  loud-ticking  clocks  and  a  hibachi.  It  was  so 
dilapidated  that  I  doubted  whether  it  had  ever  seen 
better  days.  It  might  have  been  a  haunted  house  from 
which  the  very  spirits  had  fled.  The  meekness  and  the 
silence  were  most  oppressive.  Indeed  my  heart  ached 
to  come  so  close  to  so  desolate  a  life. 

He,  poor  fellow,  wore  his  humility  with  no  philosophic 
resignation.  He  longed  to  emerge  from  his  poverty,  his 
slavery,  but  it  was  a  longing  which  had  no  other  courage 
than  to  know  a  hole  here  and  a  hole  there  through 
which  it  might  run  at  random.  I  did  not  suggest  one 
hopeful  promise,  nor  try  to  stimulate  one  fertile  pos- 
sibility that  he  did  not  discourage  before  he  had  turned 
its  meaning  over  in  his  mind.  He  was  a  slave.  He 
worked  from  five  in  the  morning  to  nine  and  ten  at 
night  (and  that  gave  good  reason  for  the  presence  of 
two  clocks);  yet  when,  offhand,  I  suggested  that  a 
Japanese  workingman  makes  a  yen  (fifty  cents)  a  day, 
his  astonishment  showed  that  his  own  wage  was  much 
less. 


24  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

"A  superintendent  of  police,  a  friend  of  mine,  gets 
only  thirty  yen  a  month,"  he  told  me.  And  his  poor 
young  wife,  too,  quiet,  not  as  a  mouse  but  as  a  dead 
soul,  lived  and  moved  and  slept  in  that  everlasting 
senselessness  of  things.  During  the  time  that  I  spent 
with  them  the  rampage  of  rats  sent  shivers  through  me. 
They  must  have  been  ten-pound  beasts.  The  walls 
trembled.  I  have  never  heard  such  wildness  and  such 
vigor  between  walls  before. 

Thus  I  obtained  my  first  insight  into  the  life  of  the 
Japanese  toiler.  Of  course,  anxious  as  I  was  to  live 
with  the  people,  it  was  out  of  the  question  to  do  so  here. 
His  offer  was  the  "best  room"  with  bed  and  food,  all  for 
nine  yen  a  month  (just  $4.50).  I  gave  an  evasive  answer. 

While  I  was  thus  investigating  every  bit  of  humanity 
that  came  across  my  path  in  the  hotel,  I  began  to  be 
more  conscious  of  the  world  around  me.  I  was  begin- 
ning to  single  out  certain  elements  in  the  weird  and 
jumbled  sounds  of  the  streets  outside.  At  night,  when 
the  stillness  of  sleep  was  settling  over  the  city,  the  thin, 
sad,  pleasing  notes  of  the  traveling  blind  massageur's 
fife  would  call  around  the  corner,  and,  from  a  distance, 
would  answer  the  attenuated  note  of  a  comrade's  appeal. 
It  was  lovely  to  listen  to.  It  reminded  me  of  Liszt's 
Hungarian  Rhapsodies,  of  Dvorak's  "New  World 
Symphony."  And  as  the  distant  fife-sounds  seemed  to 
echo  the  nearer  call  and,  yet,  to  accompany  it,  so  the 
unseen  soul  of  Japan  seemed  to  harmonize  in  appeal 
with  western  sorrow. 

This  is  the  advantage  of  the  wanderer.  To  him  the 
whole  world  becomes  a  symphony,  with  the  rich  and 
poor  of  every  land  as  the  march  triomphale  or  theme 
pathttique.  To  him  Old  World  and  New  World  sym- 
phonies in  sadness  blend  out  the  demarcations  of  private 
pain. 

There  was  more  than  the  melody  of  the  blind  mas- 


SOUNDS  25 

sageur  in  the  symphony  of  street-sounds  outside  my 
hotel.  Beggars,  religious  and  otherwise,  minstrels  with 
conch  shells,  priests  in  tremendous  straw  hats  under 
which  you  could  not  see  the  face,  would  chant  as  they 
passed  quickly  along.  And  on  a  bench,  one  day,  sat  a 
coolie,  alone,  singing  as  though  all  his  heart  were  over- 
flowing— whether  with  joy  or  sorrow  I  cannot  say.  The 
Japanese  are  always  singing,  though  one  must  not  con- 
fuse this  word,  which  I  use  for  want  of  a  better,  with 
anything  like  real  music.  Rather  is  it  overflowing  good 
spirits  which  know  no  form. 

More  like  real  music  was  the  progress  of  the  newsboy 
down  the  street.  He  did  not  cry  the  latest  cables. 
From  his  hips  he  would  hang  some  bells,  and,  as  he  ran 
along  at  a  regular  pace,  the  jingling  announced  the 
coming  of  the  news.  He  was  as  proud  of  his  calling  as 
though  he  were  bringing  the  good  news  from  Aix  to 
Ghent.  As  he  slipped  away  into  an  alley,  his  body 
would  veer  in  the  direction  of  the  turn  taken,  like  one  so 
poised  that  only  perfect  steering  could  maintain  his 
balanced  love  of  life. 

There  was  a  constant  ringing  of  bells.  Runners  in 
groups  or  singly  would  jingle  their  announcements  of 
plays  at  the  movies;  the  rickshaw  man  would  ring  as  he 
pat-a-patted  by  with  his  soft  cloth  shoes;  and  the 
bicycle  fiends  honked  their  horns  or  trrrrrr-ed  their 
bells  as  they  tore  through  the  streets  with  maddened 
pace.  These  riders'  faces  were  set;  their  kimonos  filled 
before  the  wind;  and  woe  betide  him  who  did  not  get  out 
of  the  way.  As  they  passed,  the  confusion  of  life  on  the 
street  became  a  series  of  scattered  eddies,  and  the  slow 
plodding  vender,  who  pulled  a  low  cart,  would  blow  his 
unmelodious  horn  on  the  unimportance  of  being  in 
earnest.  When  one  of  these  frantic  riders  did  decide  to 
stop,  he  did  not  slow  up  cautiously  as  he  approached  his 
halting-place.  He  came  to  with  the  wind,  braking 


26  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

himself  with  his  wooden  clog,  which  was  as  firm  on  his 
foot  as  ever  our  shoe  could  be.  And  when  he  dis- 
mounted, he  did  not  do  it,  as  we  do,  by  throwing  the 
right  leg  backward  over  the  seat,  but  by  pulling  it  over 
the  bar  in  front  of  him.  When  he  started  off  again,  he 
pedaled,  not  by  working  his  knees  up  and  down,  but  by 
kicking  them  outward  as  though  the  seat  were  too  low. 
This,  I  presume,  was  due  to  the  squatting  on  floors  to 
which  all  Japanese  are  accustomed,  and  to  the  skirt 
about  his  legs  which  hampered  his  movement. 

One  night  a  weird  chanting  sounded  down  the  street  of 
the  settlement,  and  then  came  the  strangest  sight  I  had 
ever  seen.  Forty-three  coolies,  each  pulling  on  a  branch 
of  rope  tied  to  a  main  line,  came  dragging  and  chanting 
as  they  pulled  a  wagon  bearing  a  tremendous  engine 
boiler.  That,  no  doubt,  was  the  way  the  Pyramids  were 
built,  and  the  Wall  of  China. 

By  this  time  the  interest  of  the  maids  and  servants  in 
their  strange  foreign  guest  was  beginning  to  lapse,  and 
the  service  to  fail.  The  two  little  maids  liked  me  well 
enough,  and  I  them.  But  it  began  to  irritate  me  to 
have  them  slow  and  cumbersome,  and  the  fact  that  no 
one  took  any  interest  in  me,  aside  from  an  occasional 
attempt  at  English,  made  me  eager  for  new  worlds  to 
conquer.  I  was  not  taken  about  to  see  the  Japanese 
world,  as  happens  to  more  officially  guided  persons. 
So  I  saw  that  I  should  have  to  guide  myself.  One  of  the 
emigrants  advised  me  that  he  knew  of  a  hotel  run  by  a 
Japanese  who  had  been  to  America,  where  the  service 
was  much  better.  Thither  I  went. 

The  hotel  was  a  three-story  structure — a  skyscraper 
for  that  neighborhood — of  wood  and  mud.  The  en- 
trance was  stocked  with  baggage.  One  left  one's  shoes 
on  the  dirt  floor  and  stepped  upon  a  little  platform  at 
the  foot  of  the  stairs.  To  the  right  was  the  open  room 
used  as  an  office.  Ascending  the  stairs  would  be,  I 


ODORS  AND  NOISE  27 

thought,  no  easy  matter.  They  were  steep  as  a 
ladder. 

The  wife  of  the  proprietor  was  a  most  cordial  person. 
Exceptionally  refined,  pretty  beyond  her  age,  speaking 
English  more  as  a  Frenchwoman  than  a  Japanese,  she 
almost  reconciled  me  to  the  place.  She  had  lived  in 
America  fifteen  years,  and  her  sojourn  had  left  a  marked 
effect  upon  her.  Her  husband  was  a  wiry,  sharp  fellow — 
not  easy  to  run  up  against. 

She  showed  me  two  rooms,  offered  to  place  a  bed  for 
me,  and  returned  to  consult  her  husband;  while  I  ex- 
amined my  new  abiding-place.  A  table  and  a  chair 
were  my  only  gain  in  moving.  As  to  the  bed — well,  I 
have  no  knowledge  of  anything  anywhere  in  the  world 
ever  having  answered  to  the  sacred  noun  "bed"  in  such 
a  sacrilegious,  scandalous  manner.  I  really  believe  it 
was  a  makeshift  for  a  coffin.  It  stood  on  four  angle-iron 
legs  four  feet  high,  was  twenty-four  inches  wide  and 
about  five  feet  long.  An  angle-iron  frame  held  a  straw 
mattress  and,  on  top,  the  quilts.  It  wasn't  wide  enough 
to  permit  one  to  roll  off — fall  off  was  more  to  the  point. 

I  was  hardly  established  in  this  outrageous  mockery  of 
things  American  when  I  learned  that  this  hotel  was  also 
full  of  emigrants.  Men  who  had  returned  for  wives,  now 
happily  married,  were  going  back  to  the  States;  and  all 
around  me  were  families  en  route  for  the  New  World. 
The  brides  were  eager  to  see  an  American  at  close 
range,  so  that  they  might  know  what  to  expect  on  the 
other  side. 

Though  the  proprietors  had  been  to  America,  the 
hotel  was  still  a  good  example  of  unregenerate  Japanese 
hostelry.  Of  the  five  senses,  it  would  seem  that,  as  keen 
as  the  Japanese  are  in  two,  they  are  deficient  in  the 
other  three.  The  narrow  eyes,  which  seem  subjected  to 
so  much  struggle  in  seeing,  reveal  to  the  Japanese  sights 
incomparable.  Touch  in  art,  though  not  a  primary 


28  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

sense,  is  indispensable  in  the  Japanese  expression  of 
line  and  color  in  exquisite  craftsmanship.  But  even  as 
these  companion  senses  have  won  so  much  glory  for 
Japan,  the  three  remaining  have,  so  far,  been  seriously 
neglected,  perhaps  never  developed  or  never  possessed 
in  rudimentary  forms.  Japanese  can  submit  to  the  most 
violent  and  sickening  odors,  due  to  lack  of  sewage, 
without  making  any  attempt  to  minimize  them.  They 
eat  the  simplest  foods,  with  no  taste,  and  find  them 
palatable.  As  to  hearing — well,  enough  has  been  written 
about  their  music.  However,  I  will  add  a  word.  One 
evening  my  landlady  played  and  sang  for  me.  The 
accompaniment  was  suited  to  the  song.  That  I  was  not 
touched  was  perhaps  my  fault;  that  it  was  a  sad  song, 
perhaps  not  hers.  The  mournful  part  of  it  was  that 
either  her  voice  was  not  made  for  the  music  or  the  music 
for  another  voice.  Where  the  trouble  lay  I  am  not 
certain.  I  wish  I  could  be  as  certain  that  there  was  no 
trouble.  That  was  the  sad  part  of  it,  for  the  effort  to 
accomplish  something  was  intense. 

Aside  from  the  abominable  odors  and  the  noise,  I 
began  to  see  here,  too,  that  service  in  a  Japanese  hotel  is 
not  planned  for  the  purpose  of  holding  guests  per- 
manently. Confusion  obtained,  and  the  tawdriness  in 
efforts  at  foreign  ways  was  amazing.  The  only  thing 
that  kept  me  from  leaving  the  place  precipitately  was 
the  daughter  of  the  house— a  playful  little  creature 
whose  innocence  was  a  study.  I  had  arranged  to  teach 
her  English  and  she  was  to  help  me  with  Japanese,  a 
language  into  which  I  had  made  inroads  to  the  extent  of 
two  real  words.  She  was  extremely  apt,  and  anxious  to 
learn,  and  would  play  about  like  a  little  kitten. 

I  am  convinced  that  good  things  do  not  come  in  flocks 
and  herds.  At  least  'tis  certain  good  baths  do  not. 
My  objection  to  bathing  in  the  same  room  and  the  same 
water  with  thirty-odd  guests,  male  and  female,  was  met 


UNCONSCIOUS  VIRTUE  29 

with  but  one  alternative — the  public  bath.  As  though 
the  one  at  the  hotel  were  not  public  enough.  Most 
likely  the  Japanese  regard  dense  steam  as  sufficient 
privacy  for  ordinary  mortals.  The  alternative  offered 
me  was  not  the  one  across  the  street,  where  a  perpetual 
stream  of  bathers  cleansed  itself  of  its  honest  sweat  each 
day,  but  the  one  and  only  good  public  bath  in  Kobe. 
The  one  to  which  Chinese,  being  more  modest,  go.  The 
hotel  boy  came  to  guide  me,  one  moonlight  night,  and 
led  me  above  the  city  to  the  foot  of  Suwayama. 

The  person  who  tries  to  describe  Japan  without  due 
regard  both  to  its  pleasant  and  unpleasant  sides  is 
painting  shadows  on  the  morning  mist.  But  sometimes, 
out  of  the  very  mists  of  Japanese  illusiveness,  one  fre- 
quently runs  into  something  even  lovelier  than  illusion. 
The  clouded  moon  left  such  a  wreck  of  reality  as  we 
reached  the  region  of  the  baths  that  it  seemed  we  had 
entered  another  world.  The  fine  homes  along  either 
side,  rich  and  immaculate,  filled  me  with  envy.  To  our 
left,  clambering  up  the  hillside,  steep  and  wooded,  were 
more  homes  and  more  hotels,  with  electric  lights  in 
frosted  globes  staring  out  into  the  night  like  monster 
glowworms.  The  soft,  flat  surface  of  the  paper  windows 
spread  the  inner  lights  as  though  the  radiance  of  human 
gentleness  were  imprisoned  behind  those  slender  wooden 
bars. 

It  must  have  been  because  of  the  moonlight,  but  the 
yard  we  entered  seemed  exquisitely  arranged.  Japanese 
gardens  are  in  a  sense  prohibitive,  compared  with  the 
broad  lawns  and  soft  flower-beds  in  the  West.  They  are 
too  set-up  and  stiff,  with  rockeries  to  be  looked  at,  not 
lounged  upon.  But  none  the  less,  pictorially,  they  pos- 
sess incomparable  charm  when  not  too  heavily  massed. 
Within  such  a  garden,  close  up  against  the  hill,  stood 
these  baths. 

The  room  assigned  to  me  cost  me  thirty  sen  and  was 


30  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

neat  and  inviting.  Fresh  water  was  let  into  a  stone  tub 
half  sunk  into  the  floor,  and  steam  turned  on  to  heat  it. 
I  had  taken  an  hour  to  cleanse  myself,  and  thought  my 
companions  would  be  impatient,  but  when  I  emerged  and 
looked  into  the  cheaper  section — it  costs  only  five  sen 
there — I  saw  them  soaping  and  scrubbing  themselves 
as  though  they  had  just  begun.  I  was  not  sorry,  for  it 
gave  me  ample  time  to  observe  the  life  about.  Women 
and  men  were  coming  and  going,  singly  and  in  couples, 
sexes  parting  or  meeting  at  the  doors.  It  was  most 
delightful  to  watch  them,  calm  in  appearance,  not  over- 
gracious,  but  with  a  mien  certainly  indicative  of  the  best 
relationships.  There  was  none  of  our  western  modesty, 
no  female  bathers  screaming  and  pretending  when  the 
door  was  opened  upon  them  grouped  in  nakedness 
about  the  wooden  water  pit.  Three  old  women  had 
entered  together.  As  the  door  was  opened  by  the  male 
attendant,  they  were  sitting  round  the  charcoal  brazier 
warming  their  hands  and  their  tongues,  quite  ladylike. 
Though  the  law  prohibits  men  and  women  bathing 
together  in  public,  it  does  not  instil  prudishness.  They 
obey  the  law  by  ignoring  it. 

My  first  impression  of  that  bath-house  made  me  rest- 
less. I  had  endured  the  noise,  the  dirt,  the  lack  of  ser- 
vice as  long  as  it  was  possible  for  one  of  the  West  to 
submit  to  the  ways  of  the  East.  The  girls,  at  first  ready 
to  please,  began  to  lag  in  their  attentiveness,  finally 
ignoring  my  bell  or  bringing  my  meals  as  late  and  as 
cold  as  possible.  As  long  as  one  is  keyed  up  with  in- 
terest, one  overlooks  things  which  custom  and  habit  have 
made  him  deem  indispensable ;  but  then  the  enthusiasm 
wears  off  and  a  return  to  the  other  becomes  painfully 
urgent.  I  could  not  even  find  peace  or  momentary 
solitude,  for  the  neighbor  emigrants  walked  in  upon  me 
at  all  hours  eager  to  satisfy  their  anticipations  by  observ- 
ing me  or  practising  their  English.  My  only  satis- 


PERCHED  UPON  THE  HILLSIDE  AGAINST  A  BACKGROUND, 
SOBER  AND  SOOTHING 


IN  THAT  ROOM  I  COULD  FORGET  THE  TENNO  S  PALACE 


AT  LEAST  THERE  WAS  SOMETHING  PICTURESQUE  IN  THE  ARMOR  OF  THE  SAMURAI 


HFFK  AND  m'Mm.K  WHEN 
SERVING  ME 


WHO  KNOWS  WHAT  SHE  SAW 
IN  HER  MIKKOK 


SUWAYAMA  31 

faction  was  in  being  able  to  study  what  is  regarded  as 
the  proper  behavior  of  a  bride.  She  was  young 
and  sweet  and  retiring,  and  her  husband  as  contrary  as 
was  humanly  possible. 

But  at  the  hotel  there  was  not  enough  contact  with 
the  people  in  actual  affairs  to  keep  my  interest  alert. 
For  many  days  I  had  set  my  heart  on  a  house  close  to 
the  baths  at  Suwayama.  One  day  I  asked  a  Japanese 
gentleman  living  nearby  if  he  knew  whether  one  could 
rent  a  portion  of  it.  Strangely  enough  it  turned  out 
that  it  was  a  boarding-house,  and  he  offered  to  make 
my  wants  known  to  the  proprietors.  Arrangements 
were  soon  completed. 

The  house  was  perched  upon  the  hillside,  with  long 
glass  verandas  affording  a  view  over  the  whole  of  Kobe 
and  of  Osaka  Bay.  The  housekeepers  showed  me  a 
large  room  in  the  corner  of  the  upper  story,  assuring  me 
that  as  soon  as  it  was  vacated  I  could  have  it.  I  felt 
that,  if  I  could  live  in  that  room,  I  could  forget  the 
Tenno's  Palace. 

Returning  to  the  hotel,  I  announced  my  determination 
to  move,  and  made  arrangements  accordingly.  The 
landlord  was  most  exact  in  his  bill,  deducting  to  the  sen 
for  meals  I  had  not  taken,  and  expressing  regret  at  my 
going.  We  parted  the  best  of  friends. 

Thus  I  was  promoted.  From  an  ordinary  vagabond, 
I  became  a  boarder.  From  moving  among  emigrants,  I 
climbed  one  step  in  the  social  order  of  Japan. 

3 


Ill 

I     BECOME    A     BOARDER 

HE  house  in  which  I  had  found  quarters 
had  been  built  as  a  private  hospital. 
Therefore,  though  it  was  thoroughly 
Japanese,  it  possessed  some  exceptional 
features  and  advantages.  It  stood  upon 
a  stone  foundation  fully  ten  feet  high, 
plumb  up  against  the  hill  overlooking  the  city.  The 
green  background  was  sober  and  soothing,  and  the  air 
was  fresh,  with  plenty  of  sunshine.  On  occasion  the 
mist  would  clear  away  from  over  Osaka  Bay,  exposing 
the  hills  of  Yamato — the  seat  of  Japan's  ancient  pride — 
each  separate  ravine  blocked  with  sunshine  or  with 
shade,  making  one  with  a  lovely  crystal  panorama. 
The  point  to  the  right  almost  reaches  Awaji  Island, 
forming  the  inner  neck  of  Kii  Channel — the  great  wide 
path  of  the  scores  of  steamers  bound  for  Yokohama  and 
"home."  Then,  Awaji,  itself,  the  first  island  of  Japan, 
stands  out  crystal  clear.  But  immediately  beneath 
stretches  the  city  of  Kobe  with  its  gray-tiled  roofs  so 
monotonously  dull — miles  upon  miles  of  them  without 
a  ripple  of  distinction  to  break  up  the  regularity, 
stretch  till  it  seems  they  reach  Osaka,  twenty  miles 
away;  stretch  to  the  right,  including  what  was  once  the 
city  of  Hyogo.  Symbol-loving  Japan  has  made  of  the 
land  of  Hyogo  and  Kobe  two  great  fans  overlapping 
each  other.  The  only  things  now  to  break  up  Japanese 
picture-making  imaginativeness  are  the  towering  chim- 


MY  HOUSEKEEPER  33 

ney  stacks  of  the  new  steel  mills  to  the  left  and  the 
bridgelike  cranes  of  the  great  dockyards  which  butt  out 
into  the  waters  before  Hyogo  at  the  right. 

The  harbor  is  alive  with  sailing  vessels  and  ocean 
liners  panting  into  rest  as  though  weary  of  inces- 
sant sailing.  From  some  barely  a  rift  of  smoke  issues. 
From  the  homes  not  a  sign  of  life.  Not  a  chimney  any- 
where in  all  that  vast  crowding  to  tell  of  hearth-fires 
burning — yet  they  do.  And  though  the  unreality  of 
Japan  is  constantly  reaching  out  to  take  the  foreigner 
in  its  grasp  and  one  must  ever  strive  against  it,  I  felt 
that  by  coming  here,  into  this  boarding-house  upon  the 
hill,  I  would  be  able  to  gain  some  of  its  living  qualities 
without  destroying  its  illusiveness. 

The  gate  permitting  entrance  to  my  fortress  was 
dilapidated,  too  far  gone  for  its  massive  doors  to  swing 
upon  their  primitive  hinges.  One  removed  one's  shoes 
in  the  little  chamber-hallway,  but  generally  took  them 
along,  for  there  was  no  telling  who  might  be  the  next 
visitor.  Up  a  dozen  steep  steps,  a  sharp  turn  to  the 
left — and  the  "ladder"  lay  two  stories'  length  upward. 
They  were  real  stairs  but  steep,  and  one  invariably 
struck  his  unprotected  toes  upon  them.  One  little 
room  on  the  ledge  above,  in  the  foundation,  as  it  were; 
a  series  of  rooms  on  the  floor  above;  and  then  the  main 
floor  on  top.  The  kitchen  stood  out  leftward,  like  a 
handle  to  the  building. 

I  had  taken  a  room  on  the  lower  floor  only  on  condition 
that  the  large  corner  room  above  be  given  me  as  soon  as 
vacated.  The  housekeeper,  a  rather  good-looking  young 
woman  of  about  thirty,  with  ladylike  tendencies,  as- 
sured me  the  gentleman  occupying  it  would  leave  within 
a  week.  The  week  began  to  drag  on  to  fortnightliness, 
dangerously  approaching  the  ripe  old  age  of  a  month, 
and  all  my  inquiries  were  fruitless.  Realizing  that 
dainty  ways  in  such  circumstances  as  my  landlady's 


34  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

were  the  very  essence  of  tact  and  courtesy,  I  at  last 
resorted  to  diplomacy  to  gain  my  ends.  I  made  friends 
with  the  occupant  of  the  desired  room.  He  was  the 
son  of  a  well-to-do  business  man  of  Tokyo.  He  was 
living  here  in  Kobe  as  representative  of  his  father's  firm 
which  handled  camphor  products  for  the  cure  and  pre- 
vention of  colds.  Anticipating  a  journey  abroad,  he 
wanted  to  improve  his  English.  So  influential  a  person 
as  that  was  a  good  ally  in  my  determination  to  go  one 
floor  higher  up.  He  made  arrangements  with  the 
housekeeper  and  the  room  next  door  suddenly  became 
vacant.  Our  being  next  door  to  each  other  would 
facilitate  our  exchange  of  language  lessons,  he  said — 
and  the  transfer  was  made.  His  enthusiasm  began  to 
grow.  He  would  soon  be  able  to  speak  English  fluently. 
His  gratitude  was  miraculously  commensurate  with  his 
enthusiasm.  "Foreigners  like  this  room,"  he  told  me, 
and  before  I  knew  it  he  was  the  occupant  of  mine,  and  I 
of  his — the  prize  I  was  after  for  six  weeks. 

And  grateful  indeed  was  I.  Below,  as  the  summer 
approached,  the  smells  from  the  closet  and  kitchen  had 
become  unbearable.  I  should  not  have  been  able  to 
endure  it.  Up  here  I  was  to  be  free  from  all  such  incon- 
veniences. But  I  had  to  pay  for  it.  The  housekeeper 
had  on  all  occasions  shown  herself  reluctant  in  the 
matter.  Her  regular  features,  unusually  expressive  for 
a  Japanese  woman's  face,  fell.  She  even  argued  against 
it,  but  seeing  that  he  was  willing  and  I  determined,  she 
yielded.  Then  she  stated  her  terms.  It  was  just 
double  the  amount  he  had  paid  for  it.  I  acceded,  and 
became  the  proud  occupant  of  a  room,  twelve  and  a 
half  mats  in  size.  Japanese  never  discuss  houses  ac- 
cording to  rooms,  nor  rooms  according  to  measurement 
in  feet ;  to  them  a  house  or  a  room  is  so  many  mats  big, 
each  mat  being  the  standard  size — six  by  three  feet. 
My  room,  twelve  and  a  half  mats,  was  therefore  about 


MY  TROUBLES  BEGIN  35 

fifteen  feet  square.  Entrance  from  the  hall  was  by  way 
of  two  large  paper  sliding  doors ;  the  wall  to  the  left  was 
also  two  large  paper  sliding  doors;  the  wall  opposite 
was  four  smaller  translucent  paper  sliding  doors,  opening 
out  into  the  balcony;  the  wall  to  the  right  was  set  off 
as  the  usual  alcove  called  tokonoma  and  two  jiku  or 
kakaji,  hanging  scrolls,  and  shelving  called  chigai  dana 
because  one  is  a  little  above  the  other. 

But  what  a  difference!  I  was  wakened  the  next 
morning  from  a  deep  sleep  by  the  sun,  which  had  poured 
itself  into  my  room  through  the  open  sliding  doors.  It  was 
undoubtedly  grateful  that  some  mere  mortal  had  thrown 
wide  his  portals  for  it  to  enter — Japanese  generally  sleep 
with  their  doors  shut  tight.  It  was  a  perfect  morning; 
the  display  of  light  was  like  golden  silk  which  the  sun 
was  bidding  me  take  for  a  garment  for  my  soul. 

The  Bay  was  clear  for  miles  and  miles — all  the  way 
to  Osaka,  and  the  mountains  beyond,  which  shut  in  the 
Inland  Sea,  Japan's  Mediterranean,  its  Idsumi-nada. 
The  sailboats  seemed  delicate  and  paper-like,  barely 
resting  on  the  smooth  surface.  Even  the  weighty  and 
more  commanding  steamers  stood  smoking  with  pride, 
but  floating  with  the  same  buoyancy.  So  everything 
conforms  to  nature:  empires  and  villages,  emperors  and 
fishermen.  What  a  pageant  of  life  has  passed  across 
that  sea,  and  only  the  barest  glimpse  of  it  can  again 
fall  before  human  inquiry. 

Life,  it  seems,  is  simply  a  matter  of  space,  of  distance 
or  of  nearness.  When  first  I  walked  the  narrow  little 
streets  of  Japan,  tired  of  the  outside  view  of  things,  I 
imagined  the  more  intimate  contact  to  be  all  glory  and 
loveliness.  My  first  real  disappointment  was  in  finding 
the  inner,  closer  contact  still  as  illusive.  I  soon  began 
to  miss  that  distant  perspective;  I  became  too  pre- 
occupied with  being  with  and  with  avoiding  being  with. 
Until  I  moved  up-stairs,  I  thought  nothing  more  de- 


36  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

sirable  than  that  room;  but  the  sulkiness  of  the  house- 
keeper spoiled  all  the  pleasure  of  final  possession.  I 
could  not  make  it  out.  But  then  it  began  to  dawn  upon 
me  that,  being  a  foreigner,  she  was  afraid  I  would  not 
put  up  with  her  using  the  room  in  common  with  me  as  a 
Japanese  would.  And  that  room  was  the  pride  of  her 
life.  Into  it  she  could  bring  her  friends  when  the  right- 
ful lodger  was  out — or  even  when  he  was  in.  No 
foreigner  would  stand  that.  A  foreigner,  when  he  takes 
a  room,  expects  to  use  it  himself,  he  wants  his  privacy. 
And  so  she  was  not  happy,  and  I  would  see  her  in  my 
neighbor's  room,  hear  her  chatter  away  with  him  for 
hours  till  I  learned,  through  repetition,  that  I  was  the 
subject  of  her  conversation,  so  often  would  "Seiyojin" 
(foreigner)  come  into  the  string  of  syllables.  Then,  the 
grinning,  yellow  face  of  her  husband  would  appear 
through  the  glass  pane  which  is  always  found  near  the 
bottom  in  the  latticed-paper  sliding  doors,  and  pushing 
one  aside,  he  would  enter  on  all  fours.  My  conversa- 
tion with  him  would  interest  the  others,  and  before  long 
the  whole  lot  of  them — boarder,  housekeeper,  servant- 
girls — would  be  squatting  on  my  floor.  The  conversa- 
tion would  all  center  in  me,  but  not  a  word  was 
directed  to  me.  It  was  most  difficult  to  get  a  line 
of  it  interpreted.  But  there  they  would  all  stay,  in 
my  room,  till  the  midnight  hours  called  them  all  to 
sleep. 

As  the  weeks  wore  on,  the  food  the  housekeeper  was 
supposed  to  prepare  for  me  in  foreign  style  began  to 
tax  my  endurance.  The  arrangement  had  been  that 
I  was  to  have  all  my  meals  there,  but  I  soon  went  out  for 
my  lunch;  more  often  than  not  I  would  remain  in  town 
for  my  dinner,  too.  But  even  the  simple  breakfast 
began  to  deteriorate.  Her  carelessness  in  the  matter  of 
dishwashing  compelled  me  to  institute  a  reform  which 
was  not  at  all  to  her  liking.  Domestic  science  has  not 


PUTTERING  37 

yet  come  in  on  the  breakers  of  westernization  which 
reached  the  shores  of  Japan. 

I  called  my  neighbor  to  my  defense.  "Would  you 
explain  to  her,"  I  pleaded,  "that  a  frying-pan  cannot  be 
washed  in  cold  water  as  Japanese  wash  a  rice  bowl, 
because  the  grease  from  the  meat  is  not  as  yielding  as 
the  greaseless  rice?"  Yes,  he  would  explain.  And  for 
fifteen  minutes  I  stood  by,  listening  to  a  discussion  that 
seemed  to  me  mutually  well  understood.  But  I  was 
becoming  impatient.  It  seemed  he  was  saying  much 
more  than  I  had  asked  him  to.  Surely  he  couldn't  be 
merely  repeating  my  thirty-odd  words.  "What  does 
she  say?"  I  put  in,  pleadingly.  "Just  a  moment, 
please,"  and  off  he  skated  again  on  the  joys  of  an  expla- 
nation. Then  it  dawned  on  me  that  he  might  not  alto- 
gether have  understood.  "Did  you  understand  me?"  I 
broke  in — and  discovered  that  grease  was  not  in  his 
vocabulary. 

But  that  was  only  the  beginning  of  my  troubles. 
From  one  to  the  other  of  the  resident  boarders — gener- 
ally intelligent  young  business  men,  clerks,  and  agents 
representing  Tokyo  or  Osaka  firms,  young  men  just 
returned  from  business  in  Java,  China,  or  America — as 
acquaintanceship  would  arise  I  would  rope  them  into 
helping  me  to  solve  my  domestic  problems.  Very  often 
the  housekeeper  herself  would  call  in  a  new  arrival  to 
tell  me  she  could  or  could  not  assent  to  a  reform.  Invari- 
ably the  new  arrival  could  speak  very  good  English- 
that  is,  until  he  approached  me.  Then  it  was  confusion 
worse  confounded. 

Henceforth  let  no  one  tell  me  anything  about  woman's 
superior  intelligence  in  the  matter  of  household  affairs. 
Even  in  so  simple  a  matter  as  making  toast,  I  had  to 
train  the  housekeeper  not  to  cut  the  bread  too  thick,  and 
to  hang  all  the  dishes  in  places  I  assigned  to  them.  She 
would  come  and  quietly  and  good-naturedly  submit  to 


38  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

my  instruction.  Her  face  would  shine  with  satisfaction, 
and  she  would  forthwith  turn  to  pass  the  information  on 
to  her  maids.  I  would  see  to  it  that  they  thoroughly 
understood  what  I  wanted.  But  no  sooner  had  they 
shown  any  skill  than  off  they  would  take  themselves, 
disgusted  with  the  ways  of  their  lady-like  mistress. 

Once  two  little  mites  came  into  her  employ.  They 
looked  like  two  little  sisters  in  a  fairy  tale.  They  could 
not  have  been  over  twelve  years  apiece,  and  were  just 
about  each  other's  size.  So  much  so  that  'twas  hard  to 
say  which  was  trying  to  be  big  sister  to  the  other.  Both 
were,  however,  as  pretty  and  as  kittenish  as  they  could 
possibly  be.  They  dressed  like  little  geisha  with  their 
sleeves  somewhat  longer  than  the  servant-girl  usually 
wears,  and  they  clung  to  each  other  like  the  babes  in 
the  woods.  The  housekeeper  had  taken  them  in  to 
train  them,  but  they  disappeared  within  three  days  after 
their  arrival,  most  likely  to  go  off  telling  others  that  they 
had  had  experience  with  foreigners'  ways. 

One  evening  the  housekeeper  puttered  about  with  the 
few  plates  and  the  knife  and  fork  and  two  pots  for  fully 
an  hour.  I  wanted  to  work  and  be  quiet,  but  she 
seemed  determined  to  remain  about  all  evening.  I 
called  her  and  suggested  that  one  of  the  girls  be  assigned 
to  do  my  work  for  me  and  that  it  could  be  done  in  ten 
minutes.  I  demonstrated.  But  she  objected  that  to 
select  one  girl  for  that  would  make  the  other  jealous. 
Probably  to  leave  a  girl  alone  on  a  job  would  make  her 
unhappy — Japanese  dread  being  alone.  However,  she 
agreed,  but  the  arrangement  lasted  only  a  short  while. 

She  got  two  other  girls — this  time  of  different  size  and 
capacity,  and  so  unevenly  balanced  in  intelligence  and 
interest  as  to  make  them  safe.  Then  she  would  com- 
mence to  cook,  and  the  two  maids  would  stand  idly 
looking  on.  And  the  simplest  sort  of  task  took  hours  and 
hours  in  the  doing. 


INCESSANT  LABOR  39 

But  pretty  generally  it  was  the  other  way  round.  The 
housekeeper  would  spend  her  days  gossiping  with  the 
boarders  in  the  house,  while  the  two  girls  slaved  from 
morning  to  night.  They  would  have  to  rise  at  five  to 
prepare  the  breakfast  of  broiled  fish,  rice,  soups,  and 
pickles  for  all  the  household  —  about  ten  or  twelve 
people — and  though  it  was  in  the  main  mere  puttering, 
they  were  kept  running  up  and  down  the  stairs  all  day 
long.  Very  often  the  girls  would  come  in  and  throw 
themselves  down  on  the  mats  in  my  room,  where 
they  would  pretend  to  have  work  to  do,  just  to  be  able 
to  rest  a  moment.  And  for  all  that  labor  they  received 
lodging,  the  simplest  possible  meals  of  rice  and  pickles 
and  tea,  and  five  yen,  or  two  and  a  half  dollars  a 
month. 

In  a  Japanese  house  the  first  morning  task  is  removing 
the  quilts  and  sweeping  and  dusting.  It  is  in  a  sense  a 
bit  of  doll-house  absurdity.  The  maid  comes  in  with 
a  wet  cloth  and  mops  all  the  woodwork.  Then  she 
follows  with  a  soft  broom  which  raises  the  dust  from  the 
mats;  and  finally  she  raises  both  noise  and  dust  with  a 
cat-o '-nine-tails  usually  made  of  strips  of  cloth.  And 
the  work  is  done.  Yet  the  effects  are  miraculous,  for 
the  straw  mats  conceal  the  presence  of  the  dust  which 
has  only  been  slightly  disturbed. 

The  question  of  cleanliness  was  the  cause  of  consider- 
able dissension,  so  much  so  that  I  was  compelled  to  call 
my  place  the  house  I  quarrel  in.  It  came  to  a  "show- 
down" one  day.  I  found  my  dishes  and  pots  unwashed, 
and — what  was  worse — the  oil  the  maid  had  used  to 
grease  the  frying-pan  full  of  tiny  little  flies.  I  raised  a 
rumpus  and  brought  down  a  revolution  upon  my  domains. 
The  housekeeper  left  in  a  fuss;  my  neighbor  could  not 
appease  her;  she  called  her  "rickshaw"  husband,  who 
coldly  notified  me  that  they  couldn't  do  what  I  wanted 
them  to  do,  and  that  I  might  leave  if  I  wasn't  satisfied. 


4o  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

But  it  was  too  soon  in  the  stage  of  my  boarding-house 
life  for  me  to  leave  abruptly.  So  I  told  them  I  would 
"look"  for  another  place.  I  thought  of  finding  a  house 
for  myself,  but  that  would  have  cut  me  from  contact 
with  these  people.  Seeing,  however,  that  they  made  an 
effort  to  serve  me  more  carefully  in  spite  of  their  threat, 
I  stayed  on.  But  it  taught  me  a  lesson.  I  was  in 
Japan,  and  they  were  at  home.  It  was  an  example  in 
racial  conflict.  When  Japanese  come  to  America,  the 
difficulty  is  that  they  tend  to  lower  our  standard  of 
living;  we  in  Japan  have  the  opposite  effect.  But  the 
proprietors  were  ready  to  reduce  the  rates  rather  than 
increase  the  efficiency  of  service. 

The  attitude  of  the  husband  made  me  respect  him 
more.  He  had  always  been  most  cordial  and  respectful, 
but  I  had  paid  little  attention  to  him.  He  was,  I  knew, 
the  jinrikisha  puller  for  the  tea-house  across  the  way, 
and  he  seemed  highly  honored  by  my  presence.  He 
seldom  interfered  in  any  home  affairs,  yet  was  always 
steady  in  his  ways,  always  at  home  and  never  drunk. 
He  was  fairly  tall  for  a  Japanese,  and — as  is  to  be  ex- 
pected from  a  position  requiring  so  much  running — 
slender.  How  it  happened  that  one  so  lowly  rose  to  such 
an  exalted  station  as  husband  to  so  ladylike  a  house- 
keeper I  was  never  able  to  learn.  Of  his  wife  I  have  said 
much  and  shall  have  more  to  say.  Who  she  was  and  why 
I  learned  only  at  the  close  of  my  career  as  boarder  in 
Japan.  But  he? — well,  I  rather  liked  him.  He  was  a 
good  sort.  He  was  more  intelligent  than  even  some  of 
the  young  men  rooming  there,  quick  to  understand  what 
word  I  wanted  or  to  correct  me  when  I  had  not  expressed 
myself  well — and,  what  is  best,  really  honest.  He  helped 
her  with  the  housework,  washed  dishes,  and,  on  the 
whole,  was  a  model  husband.  His  face  was  always 
beaming  and  his  manners  always  courteous.  And  I 
shall  never  forget  the  glee  with  which  he  told  me  he  was 


GHOSTS  AND  FAIRIES  41 

to  become  a  chauffeur  and  would  soon  give  up  pulling 
a  riki. 

So  it  was  not  always  a  case  of  quarreling.  At  times, 
the  kindliness  and  friendliness  were  touching.  And 
with  each  such  reaction  I  would  pull  myself  back  to  that 
feeling  prevailing  in  the  world  that  everything  in  Japan 
is  really  lovely  and  picturesque,  if  only  I  were  capable 
of  appreciating  it.  I  felt  that  I  must  see  and  know  the 
things  of  Japan  which  have  made  it  the  best  written-up 
country  in  the  world.  Sometimes  I  would  watch  the 
features  and  the  ways  of  these  people  and  wonder  what 
it  is  that  makes  them  so  attractive  to  us.  Then  I  would 
note  the  Japanese  woman's  lips.  They  are  anything  but 
pretty;  perhaps  because  they  have  never  been  kissed. 
But  the  smile  of  which  they  are  capable  is  the  loveliest 
expression  imaginable.  It  is  a  drawing  together  of  the 
lips  as  though  focusing  all  inner  delight  for  general  inocu- 
lation. This  is  slightly  due  to  the  protrusion  of  the 
teeth,  I  would  note,  but  the  effect  was  none  the  less 
lovely. 

One  especially  attractive  creature  was  a  little  girl  of 
eighteen.  She  was  pretty,  she  was  lovable,  she  was 
energetic;  she  was  the  favorite  with  all  the  boarders. 
For  that  very  reason  she  did  not  stay  long,  though  she 
served  longer  than  all  others. 

Then  there  came  Hana  San,  and  introduced  a  fairy 
into  our  midst  which  turned  out  to  be  a  ghost.  She  had 
attempted  to  open  a  sliding  door  or  shutter  on  one  of  our 
windows.  It  wouldn't  yield.  She  peeped  through  a 
little  hole  and  was  horrified  at  the  sight  of  an  apparition, 
in  full  attire,  defying  her.  Naturally,  maiden-like,  she 
vanished,  leaving  the  ghost  master  of  the  situation. 
So  far-reaching  are  the  effects  of  an  angry  ghost's 
vengeance  that  this  innocent  maiden  is  now  far  from 
the  place,  trying  to  subdue  her  terror  and  looking  for 
a  ghostless  neighborhood  —  and  another  job.  How- 


42  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

ever,  she  left  our  neighborhood  buzzing  with  rumor 
and  skepticism. 

After  that  we  had  Fume  San  for  a  while — and  she  de- 
parted. She  returned  one  evening.  Not  to  stay,  how- 
ever, for  she  was  sick.  A  pain  in  her  right  side.  The 
doctor  advised  an  operation.  She  couldn't  afford  it. 
The  other  girls  whispered  to  themselves  about  her,  while 
she  told  me  things  about  the  landlady  and  how  badly 
she  treats  the  girls.  She  sought  our  sympathy.  My 
neighbor  acted  as  interpreter,  and  I  got  her  story. 

She  had  been  deserted  by  a  renegade  husband.  To 
look  at  her  one  could  hardly  have  blamed  him,  for  she 
was  fat,  dirty,  sloppy.  She  was  lop-sided  and  all  out  of 
proportion.  She  had  neither  the  Japanese  woman's 
obi  back  nor  the  foreign  woman's  corseted  front  (of 
which  Japanese  women  make  so  much  fun).  She  had 
always  been  as  hard  a  worker  as  had  been  on  the  place, 
from  six  in  the  morning  till  eleven  at  night,  responding 
quickly  with  her  "hai"  whenever  called.  Relaxation 
of  a  kind  was  permitted  her,  but  it  surely  was  not  recrea- 
tion and  most  decidedly  not  play.  Ever  and  always  she 
was  there  with  a  meek,  submissive  little  smile,  a  smile 
chilling  and  cheering  at  the  same  time. 

And  this  is  her  story.  She  was  married  at  seventeen— 
ten  years  previously.  Five  years  later  her  husband  dis- 
appeared. Her  only  consolation  was  that  after  an  ab- 
sence of  five  years  she  was  again  "free."  But  free  for 
what?  To  marry  again?  Surely  not.  That  was  the 
story  of  her  life,  and  I  am  sure  it  was  a  full  account,  for 
no  life  seems  so  nearly  void  as  hers.  She  worked  for  the 
five  yen  a  month  wage  and  her  fare.  Her  fare  was  so 
meager  that  she  eagerly  accepted  the  balance  of  the  milk 
I  was  unable  to  use — and,  if  offered  an  orange  or  some 
food,  she  was  as  delighted  as  a  child.  These  things  she 
would  take  slyly,  lest  the  housekeeper  see  her.  When 
I  gave  her  a  little  money,  she  bowed  to  the  floor  a  dozen 


PRAYING  FOR   BEAUTY  43 

times.  A  messenger  knocked  at  the  door  one  day  when 
she  was  still  a  servant.  A  relative  had  come  to  ask  her 
for  a  contribution  for  the  aid  of  a  sick  relation.  And 
she  gave  it. 

The  housekeeper  ignored  her  during  the  hour  of  her 
visit,  yet  she  set  to  work  washing  dishes  and,  in  fact, 
doing  more  than  the  housekeeper  herself,  evidently  to 
earn  a  meal.  With  the  few  yen  my  neighbor  and  I  gave 
her  she  said  she  would  return  to  her  country  where  she 
might  be  cured — or? 

We  had  one  more  girl  in  the  collection  during  my  eight 
months  of  residence  there.  She  was  Hinai  San,  likewise 
fat  and  dirty.  My  neighbor  and  I  were  chatting  when 
O  Kiku  San,  the  pretty  one,  came.  He  and  I  had  been 
discussing  the  difference  between  the  relation  of  the 
sexes  in  America  and  in  Japan.  When  O  Kiku  San  sat 
down,  I  began  to  tease  her,  and  then  we  both  com- 
menced to  play  about  with  her,  chasing  her  all  over  the 
room.  Hinai  San  was  down  below,  and,  hearing  what 
was  going  on  up-stairs,  came  up  timidly.  But  feeling 
that  she  was  not  pretty  nor  attractive,  she  remained  on 
the  stairs.  Presently  we  heard  her  crying,  and  my 
neighbor  obtained  her  confession  that  she  was  lonesome 
because  I  hadn't  asked  her  to  join.  Of  course  I  said 
she  should  come  in.  After  a  little  while  she  tried  to 
enter  the  fun,  whereupon  my  neighbor  made  some  un- 
complimentary remark.  She  pressed  him  as  to  what  he 
said,  then  urged  him  to  whisper  it  to  her.  But  he 
refused.  Not  knowing  how  to  get  round  the  situation, 
she  spat  in  his  face.  He  complained  to  the  housekeeper, 
but  evidently  it  was  not  taken  as  a  gross  offense,  for 
while  they  were  discussing  it  she  went  on  washing  the 
dishes  unconcerned.  She  remained  for  four  days  with- 
out being  discharged.  In  the  meantime  she  learned 
that  the  remark  had  been  to  the  effect  that  she  was  not 
beautiful.  One  night  she  announced  that  she  would 


44  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

make  a  pilgrimage  to  Maya-san,  one  of  the  temples  on 
top  of  the  mountain  of  that  name,  nearby — to  pray  for 
beauty.  The  housekeeper  let  her  go  in  all  seriousness. 
The  next  morning,  it  was  discovered  that  she  had  come 
in  at  midnight  and  had  taken  all  her  clothes  away  with 
her.  Why  she  found  it  necessary  to  abscond  no  one 
could  tell. 

The  ease  with  which  everybody  entered  every  one 
else's  room  was  at  first  confusing.  At  one  time  I  found 
my  landlady  sitting  on  the  mats  in  my  room  combing 
her  hair  as  though  it  were  her  own  boudoir.  She  and 
her  husband  and  servants  would  come  and  go  without 
invitation  and  consideration. 

Returning  at  about  eleven  o'clock  one  evening,  I  found 
the  sliding  paper  screens  open  into  my  neighbor's  room. 
With  him  sat  the  housekeeper's  husband  and  one  of  the 
waitresses  from  the  Tokiwa,  the  tea-house  across  the 
way.  They  were  waiting  for  my  return.  A  somewhat 
refined  and  attractive  little  person  in  spite  of  her  plain- 
ness, with  narrow  eyes  and  sprightly  ways — she  took 
me  by  surprise.  I  had  not  thought  those  girls  across 
the  way  had  any  spirit  in  them,  so  mechanical  they 
seemed  in  their  movements.  But  here  she  was,  come 
all  the  way  over  just  to  meet  this  foreigner  about  whom 
they  had  all  become  quite  curious.  She  bore  herself 
with  the  greatest  dignity.  Her  speech  was  quiet  and 
reserved  and  she  would  have  been  taken  for  a  woman 
from  the  upper  class.  She  had  come  to  visit  the  house- 
keeper, whose  intimate  friend  she  was,  and  allowed  her- 
self to  wait  for  my  return.  The  friendship  had  been 
made  through  the  husband  having  secured  her  the 
position. 

In  honor  of  the  occasion,  the  paper  sliding  doors 
separating  my  room  from  my  neighbor's  had  been 
removed,  making  of  the  two  one — without  consulting 


SPYING  ON  A  BRIDE  45 

me  in  the  matter.  This  is  a  factor  in  Japanese  life  which 
can  easily  become  a  source  of  misunderstanding  between 
natives  and  new  arrivals.  This  lack  of  a  certain  sense 
of  privacy  is  to  the  foreigner,  accustomed  to  his  solid 
walls  and  locked  doors,  shocking  and  irritating.  Japanese 
dress  and  undress  in  public,  and  I  have  had  friends, 
who  came  up  to  visit  me  in  foreign  clothes,  take  off  every- 
thing down  to  their  underclothes  without  as  much  as 
excusing  themselves. 

My  neighbors  intruded  upon  me  in  good-natured 
sociability,  and  it  never  seemed  to  dawn  upon  them  that 
I  might  be  busy.  They  went  even  farther.  As  gener- 
ally there  is  a  balcony  on  every  house,  a  guest  would 
wander  along,  indifferent  as  to  whose  room  he  might  be 
passing.  One  evening  the  housekeeper  and  her  ser- 
vants came  running  into  my  room.  "Greenbie  San. 
Shita  ni,  bcppin  san  arimasu."  And  so  it  was.  Down- 
stairs there  wras  a  beauty.  She  was  a  Tokyo  beauty, 
the  bride  of  a  man  wrho  had  come  all  the  way  back  from 
Java,  where  he  was  engaged  in  business,  to  secure  a 
bride.  She  was  a  beauty.  Worth  coming  from  any- 
where in  the  world  for.  They  rushed  me  down-stairs, 
to  the  balcony,  and,  each  head  trying  to  outreach  the 
other  without  being  noticed,  we  peeped  through  the 
glass  pane  in  the  lower  part  of  the  paper  doors — and 
peeped.  The  poor,  frightened  little  creature  sat  there, 
not  daring  to  say  a  word.  The  bridegroom  also  sat 
upon  his  knees,  as  stiff  and  sedate  as  a  daimyo,  his  hands 
open  flat  upon  his  knees.  His  mother-in-law,  come  to 
see  the  bride  off,  sat  a  little  farther  away  chattering  with 
his  mother — an  incessant  sort  of  chatter.  Then  the 
beauty — worth  coming  from  up-stairs  to  see — slid  into 
the  corner  and  forthwith  began  removing  her  costly 
bridal  outfit,  and  transforming  herself  completely — 
within  her  kimono.  Then  the  girl's  mother  took  her 
departure — and  we  thought  we  had  looked  as  long  as  we 


46  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

dared.  Had  there  been  no  glass  in  those  doors,  the 
Japanese  would  have  known  how  to  see  anyway.  They 
would  have  wet  their  index  finger  and  softly  poked  it 
through  the  paper — and  thus  provided  themselves  with 
a  perfectly  legitimate — in  old  Japan — way  of  spying 
upon  an  enemy  or  neighbor. 

This  form  of  intrusion  came  very  nearly  being  the 
ruin  of  me  as  a  boarder.  They  had  no  conscience  in  the 
matter  at  all.  So  general  had  become  the  practice  of 
visitors  and  boarders  to  come  and  observe  me  from  an 
angle  on  the  balcony,  and  so  often  did  they  walk  straight 
up  in  front  of  my  room  and  look  in,  that  I  determined 
to  screen  off  the  passageway.  Here  I  at  first  found 
favor  in  my  neighbor's  eyes,  and  he  persuaded  the 
housekeeper  to  give  me  an  old  screen.  But  soon  it 
began  to  irritate  him  and  he  found  all  sorts  of  excuses 
for  its  removal.  Of  course,  his  powers  of  persuasion 
were  greater  than  mine,  and  the  screen  got  the  habit  of 
coming  down;  but  my  powers  of  persistence  were  as 
great,  and  the  poor  screen  would  soon  go  up  again. 
Each  time  I  remonstrated  and  won  my  point,  it  being 
entirely  a  matter  of  my  right  to  some  privacy — that 
part  of  the  balcony  being  solely  mine,  since  my  room  was 
at  the  farthest  end.  One  day  I  returned  to  find  the 
screen  had  disappeared.  I  could  not  discover  where  it 
went  to,  nor  did  search  throughout  the  house  reveal  it. 
It  was  simply  gone — and  no  one  knew  what  happened 
to  it.  Of  course,  I  saw  that  complaint  was  useless. 

Slowly,  as  I  began  to  understand  a  word  or  a  phrase, 
I  became  aware  of  their  gossip  about  me.  Of  course,  all 
people  gossip,  but  it  is  a  bit  too  much  to  hear  yourself 
discussed.  To  my  face  they  were  pleasant,  but  ridicule 
and  dislike  would  show  itself  in  other  ways.  I  tried  to 
see  the  situation  reversed.  A  Japanese  in  America 
would  not  have  received  concessions  such  as  I  did,  nor 
would  any  American  boarding-house  keeper  have  toler- 


DISPENSING  ENGLISH  47 

ated  half  the  innovations  I  pressed  upon  them.  But  it 
gradually  dawned  upon  me  that  it  was  largely  be- 
cause they  recognized  their  own  shortcomings  that 
they  stepped  aside. 

Their  interest  in  the  stranger  waned,  however.  Before 
many  months  almost  every  one  in  the  house  had  had  a 
few  lessons  in  English  from  me.  My  neighbor  had 
given  up  almost  immediately.  I  was  too  systematic, 
and  wanted  to  learn  as  much  of  Japanese  as  he 
learned  of  English.  Being  somewhat  experienced  in 
teaching,  I  was  giving  ten  times  more  than  I  was  re- 
ceiving. Since  he  knew  a  little  English,  as  is  the  case 
with  almost  every  Japanese  of  even  the  average  intelli- 
gence, it  was  more  easy  to  relapse  into  speaking  English 
— and  he  always  did.  Most  of  our  conversations  became 
bilingual — the  Japanese  would  use  his  English  and  I  my 
Japanese.  Then  Azuchi  San  went  to  Tokyo  for  a  fort- 
night, and  when  he  returned  he  found  another  boarder 
filling  his  place  as  learner  of  English.  Before  two 
months  went  by  I  had  had  an  agreement  with  every 
member  of  the  household  for  the  exchange  of  language 
lessons.  In  each  and  every  case  I  found  myself  exhaust- 
ing my  energies  in  trying  to  learn  and  to  teach,  but  they 
were  capable  of  coming  with  me  only  a  certain  distance. 

I  had  plunged  into  the  very  depths  of  this  Oriental 
sea  of  agglutinated  sounds.  But  no  two  persons  ever 
told  me  the  same  thing.  In  theory  there  are  three 
languages  in  Japan:  the  written,  the  honorific,  and  the 
colloquial.  In  reality  there  are  as  many  ways  of  saying 
the  same  thing  as  occasions  on  which  you  want  to  be 
polite,  suggestive,  or  deceptive.  When  my  housekeeper 
tells  me,  "Anata  wa  kotoba  wo  yoku  wakaru,"  her  face 
seems  serious  and  she  feels  proud  at  being  able  to  pass 
such  a  grave  judgment.  Literally  she  says,  "How 
well  you  understand!"  but  I  know  she  means:  "What  a 
stupid,  ill-sounding,  impolite  boor  you  are!  How  your 

4 


48  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

voice  rises  and  falls  like  a  mountain  range !  Considering 
you  are  only  a  foreigner,  how  well  you  speak!"  But 
these  are  mere  assumptions. 

My  linguistic  enthusiasm  got  me  into  trouble.  Apart 
from  the  general  absence  of  privacy,  the  insatiable  desire 
on  the  part  of  all  Japanese  to  master  English,  which 
never  gets  beyond,  "Gentleman,  allow  me  to  introduce 
myself  to  you  for  first  time,"  made  my  quarters  the 
general  rendezvous  for  every  boarder  in  the  house, 
together  with  the  housekeeper  and  servants.  But  in 
no  case  did  I  find  real  stick-to-it-iveness.  Regularity 
was  not  in  their  natures. 

I  became  a  voluntary  martyr  to  the  education  of  the 
youth  of  Japan.  One  day  I  met  two  boys.  I  simply 
asked  them  the  direction,  but  they  forthwith  attached 
themselves  to  me.  They  asked  if  they  could  come  to  me 
for  lessons.  I  yielded.  They  came.  Next  lesson  they 
had  another  free  pupil  with  them,  and  I  began  to  see 
that  the  whole  of  Kobe  would  "beat  a  track  to  my  door" 
should  I  raise  no  barrier.  I  had  not  asked  them  for  any 
fee,  and  my  fame  went  round.  But  what  was  provoking 
was  that  they  did  not  come  regularly.  So  I  determined 
to  set  my  rate  at  seventy-five  cents  a  month  each  for 
twelve  lessons.  I  knew  they  could  not  pay  more. 
They  continued  for  three  weeks.  By  that  time  there 
were  half  a  dozen  zealots,  quiet,  mannerly,  sitting  in  a 
semicircle  upon  my  mats.  Toward  the  end  of  the  month 
they  gradually  dwindled  and  disappeared — without 
paying  me.  I  was  sorry  for  them,  for  in  each  case  I 
would  receive  a  letter  reading  thus: 

DEAR  TEACHER: 

Please  excuse  me,  for  we  cannot  go  to  your  house  at  this 
evening,  because  we  are  very  busy  with  our  works. 

Which  meant  that  Kobe  narikin  firms,  shipping,  export, 
manufacturing  firms,  were  bringing  pressure  to  bear  on 


A  BUDDING  ROMANCE  49 

them  in  the  way  of  longer  hours  during  the  war-time 
rush. 

One  held  out  the  longest,  and  there  was  good  reason. 
The  little  girl,  daughter  of  the  hotelkeeper  mentioned 
in  the  previous  chapter,  had  been  coming  to  me  for 
lessons  twice  a  week.  She  was  a  bewitching  little  thing 
and  always  brought  her  little  six-year-old  sister  along  as 
chaperon.  Of  all,  her  interest  and  brightness  were  the 
best,  and  she  learned  rapidly.  And  it  was  on  account 
of  her  that  this  other  young  fellow  came  so  regularly. 
I  began  to  see  an  interesting  little  bit  of  romance  and 
nursed  it  indulgently — yet  protecting  the  little  girl  as 
far  as  possible.  I  never  would  let  them  go  off  without 
her  little  sister,  which  indeed  was  most  unkind  and  un- 
considerate.  Then,  strangely  enough,  the  little  girl 
stopped  coming.  I  hadn't  time  to  make  inquiries,  and 
some  weeks  passed.  The  last  of  my  students  also 
dropped  away.  One  day  I  received  a  long  sheet  of  paper 
neatly  folded  in  the  Japanese  way,  all  written  over  like  a 
valedictory.  Translation  revealed  that  it  was  an  invi- 
tation to  a  wedding  to  take  place  in  Tokyo.  Little 
Kazu-ko,  just  gone  fourteen,  was  to  be  married  to  a  very 
refined  and  educated  Tokyo  gentleman  just  returned 
from  years  of  residence  in  England.  And  my  little 
romance  had  gone  to  smash. 

"Exchange"  in  the  matter  of  lessons  having  proved 
itself  so  fruitless,  I  employed  two  teachers  myself. 
One  I  kept  for  a  week  and  the  other  for  six  weeks — but 
I  found  they  neither  knew  how  to  teach  nor  were  they 
really  interested  in  doing  so.  The  Japanese,  in  the 
matter  of  his  language,  still  tries  to  keep  the  gates  to 
his  inner  empire  closed  to  the  foreigner. 

One  evening,  just  as  my  assistant  arrived,  two  strange 
boys  wandered  in,  dressed  in  their  very  best  manners. 
They  knew  I  was  waiting  for  my  lesson,  but  they  stayed. 
We  had  to  proceed  with  it  in  their  presence.  Then  the 


5o  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

housekeeper's  husband  brought  a  brazier  and  tea — and 
himself.  And  he  stayed.  When  my  lesson  was  over 
they  began  to  discuss  me  and  my  pronunciation  and  the 
words  I  used  and  how  I  urged  for  my  gohan  (rice)  and 
what  not.  And  they  stayed.  I  shuffled  about,  I  wrote 
in  a  corner,  I  stood  like  an  impatient  horse — but  teacher 
and  student  and  attendant  all  stayed.  At  last  my 
teacher,  a  little  more  alert,  got  up  to  go.  Then  he  did 
go,  and  I  had  to  open  the  door  wider  and  hold  it — 
waiting  for  the  others  to  go,  too. 

They  had  hardly  gone  and  I  set  to  work  (nine  o'clock) 
when  the  doors  were  pushed  aside  again  and  my  house- 
keeper appeared,  all  smiles  and  sweetness,  and  pre- 
sented a  new  neighbor.  She  brought  a  steamer-chair, 
a  brazier;  and  another  chap  came  in  from  next  door,  and 
the  lot  sat  themselves  down  in  comfort  and  began 
talking.  I  went  out,  returned,  but,  like  Poe's  Raven, 
they  still  were  sitting.  They  would  have  been  there 
till  midnight — as  they  often  were — but  I  had  to  excuse 
myself  because  of  a  painful  headache,  and  retired. 
They  were  always  ready  to  use  my  room — it  being  the 
best  in  the  house — for  entertaining  whoever  happened 
to  want  entertainment.  I  was  the  pride  of  the  house- 
keeper— and  the  neighborhood. 

My  early  enthusiasm  for  the  dissemination  of  English 
among  the  Japanese,  who  trailed  on  my  footsteps  wher- 
ever I  went,  soon  vanished.  And  though  I  never 
refused  to  dispense  it,  whoever  asked,  I  learned  that 
setting  a  definite  price  upon  my  time  pretty  generally 
acted  as  a  strong  deterrent. 

In  time  their  interest  in  the  foreigner  waned.  Peace 
prevailed.  One  evening,  when  things  had  become 
somewhat  dull  and  I  was  deep  in  my  work,  the  house- 
keeper introduced  a  new  boarder.  He  had  just  returned 
from  many  years'  residence  in  Java  and  spoke  very  good 
English.  He  told  me  she  had  expressed  her  sympathy 


M--  —         *7ff&  "  '•••*•'*  v>Ltf° 

•7T-  '  •  .u,  ' 


JAPANESE  WEAR  FOUR-INCH  CLOGS  IN  WET  WEATHER,  AND  THEY  NEED  THEM 


THE  SAWYER  STILL  HOLDS  HIS  OWN  AGAINST  PROGRESS 


\VE  HKAKI)  HER  CRYING.       SHE  CONFESSED  SHE  WAS  LONESOME 


"JAPANESE  WAY"  51 

because  I  was  always  alone  and  always  working.  I  had 
no  foreign  friends  and  did  not  go  out  very  much.  So  I 
discovered  that  there  was  some  affection  in  her,  though 
I  had  thought  her  very  hard  and  selfish.  And  I  would 
look  at  her  and  her  people  and  feel  contrite.  In  their 
own  way  they  seemed  to  try  to  please,  but  how  could 
it  be  possible  where  standards  were  so  utterly  different  ? 

I  wondered  about  the  case  with  the  Chinese.  Do  they 
come  to  Japan  and  dislike  it  at  first,  but  gradually  learn 
to  love  it  as  time  goes  on,  as  is  the  case  of  Americans  in 
Europe  or  Italians  in  England?  This  much  is  true. 
To  westerners  Japan  does  not  become  more  dear  on 
acquaintance.  In  most  cases  the  early  enthusiasms 
fade  and  are  replaced  by  distrust  and  even  dislike. 
And  I  was  fighting  my  hardest  not  to  allow  petty  little 
personal  experiences  to  embitter  me  against  these 
people. 

I  had  made  friends  with  a  Japanese  who  had  lived  for 
ten  years  in  California.  His  wife  was  a  California-born 
girl  and  spoke  perfect  English.  At  his  suggestion,  she 
was  to  teach  me  Japanese,  but,  as  I  anticipated,  our 
friendship  and  their  knowledge  of  English  stood  in  the 
way.  They  would  not  accept  compensation,  and  I 
could  not  urge  instruction. 

When  I  labored  to  make  myself  understood  and 
failed,  it  irritated  me.  When  a  Japanese  fails  in  a  like 
attempt,  he  grins.  This  offends  till  you  realize  it  is  part 
of  his  custom.  I  upbraided  my  friend  for  laughing  in 
my  face  when  I  once  attempted  to  speak  Japanese  to  a 
friend  of  his.  I  explained  to  him  that  that  struck  us  as 
impolite.  He  acknowledged  that  it  was  so  and  that  he, 
too,  had  been  offended  frequently  when  speaking  English 
in  the  States.  Yet  he  said:  "That  is  Japanese  way. 
Next  time  you  speak  Japanese,  I  smile  again."  And  the 
fact  that  it  was  "Japanese  way"  seemed  ample  justifi- 
cation in  his  eyes. 


52  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

"Japanese  way"  led  to  many  other  strange  incon- 
gruities. As  clean  as  the  Japanese  are  reputed  to  be — 
and  they  do  go  to  the  bath  twice  a  day  in  summer — I 
noticed  that  the  young  men  in  the  house  would  use  the 
ordinary  bucket  in  which  dishes  were  washed  for  face 
water,  and  would  put  their  toothbrushes  into  the  basin 
in  which  they  had  just  washed  their  faces. 

"Japanese  way"  led  to  still  other  strange  things.  At 
eleven-thirty  at  night  O-Kami  San  would  suddenly  be 
inspired  to  song — yet  there  was  no  moon  about.  It  was 
as  endless  as  it  was  excruciating.  Such  things  never 
seemed  to  bother  the  Japanese.  One  young  man  in  the 
house  took  it  into  his  head  to  practise  singing  at  six 
o'clock  every  morning.  Nobody  complained. 

Suwayama  Park  being  on  the  hill  above  us,  the  path 
thereto  was  immediately  in  front  of  our  house.  People 
passing  day  or  night  would  give  vent  to  song  at  all  hours. 
It  was  not  always  unpleasant,  especially  when  it  was  the 
result  of  mere  good  spirits  and  not  sake. 

Every  morning  a  flower-girl  would  pass  through  the 
neighborhood.  She  called,  sadly,  "Hana-i,  hana-ii, 
hana-iro,"  in  three  plaintive  appeals.  In  summer  the 
peddler  calling  "ice-cream"  transformed  for  the  moment 
this  indefinable  world,  opening  the  strangling  hold  it 
had  upon  one  through  not  knowing  the  language,  and 
permitting  dovetailing  of  consciousness.  It  is  a  queer 
sensation,  this  brushing  aside  of  the  curtain  of  obscurity 
which  hangs  over  a  stranger  in  such  a  land  as  this — and 
merely  by  a  single  familiar  sound,  "Ice-cream."  One 
hears  "mame"  and  knows  it  means  beans;  "hana"  and 
knows  it  is  flowers,  but  "ice-cream"  opens  the  doors  of 
your  world  wide  again. 

Japanese  laughter  is,  when  heard  on  the  street  below, 
not  in  any  way  different  from  that  of  westerners,  and 
often  I  would  be  sure  I  had  heard  foreigners  pass — 
which  was  not  infrequently  the  case — only  to  find,  when 


NARIKIN  AND  DREADNOUGHTS  53 

bending  over  the  railing,  that  it  was  the  laughter  of 
Japanese. 

But  then  my  attention  would  be  drawn  to  the  laughter 
of  the  merrymakers  across  the  way.  The  tea-house 
was  the  finest  and  most  expensive  in  Kobe,  and  was 
frequented  by  officials  of  the  highest  rank  and  the  rich 
in  general.  To  me  it  was  there  to  watch,  day  and 
night,  and  there  I  made  my  observations  of  Oriental  life, 
its  social  and  economic  phases.  There  below  were  the 
long,  wooden  strips  of  grating  across  the  length  of  the 
room.  During  summer  the  paper  doors  were  removed. 
Every  afternoon  at  about  four  I  could  see  the  waitresses, 
stripped  to  the  waist,  sitting  before  their  little  mirrors, 
making  their  toilet  for  the  evening.  Then  the  geisha 
would  begin  to  arrive  in  all  their  gorgeous  attire — mainly 
in  red  with  gold-thread  embroidery.  The  gentlemen 
narikin  would  come  next,  and  the  quiet  waitresses  would 
begin  to  slip  about  over  the  mats.  Gradually,  as  the 
sake  began  to  take  effect  the  sounds  would  grow  more 
and  more  audible,  all  would  burst  into  song,  accompanied 
by  clapping  of  hands;  or  games  between  the  men  and 
the  geisha  would  produce  riotous  outbursts  of  laughter 
— shrieks  of  laughter.  Games  only  children  would 
play  in  the  West  are  here  enjoyed  by  gray-haired  men. 
The  night  would  be  filled  with  shrieking  and  singing 
and  clapping  of  hands,  which  continued  till  midnight. 
The  war  having  produced  abundance  of  wealth,  merry- 
making became  even  more  riotous  than  Japanese  them- 
selves could  stand,  and  the  police  ordered  that  tea- 
houses be  closed  at  midnight.  At  first  the  singing 
had  continued  till  two  and  three  o'clock.  Then  I  was 
kept  awake  by  the  calling  for  rickshaws.  A  dainty 
maiden  would  clatter  down  the  street  below  toward  us, 
where  was  the  bend  in  the  road,  and  from  there  call  out : 
"Danna  San.  Danna  San.  Iclw."  Or,  "Nicho,"  or, 
"Sancho,"  as  the  case  might  be.  She  was  calling: 


54  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

"Honorable  Mr.  Rickshaw  man.  One  round."  Or 
two  or  three.  That  is,  a  guest  wanted  one  rickshaw,  or 
two,  etc.  And  then  her  little  clogs  clattered  back  again. 
Sometimes  a  man  would  call,  and  his  bellow  wakened 
the  neighborhood.  And  from  the  distant  rickshaw-shed 
a  voice  would  answer,  sleepily,  "Hai,"  and  soon  soft, 
rubber-soled  feet  would  patter  up  the  slight  grade.  There 
were  farewells,  and  the  night  would  go  to  sleep  again. 

Though  we  were  on  the  edge  of  town  the  procession  was 
incessant.  I  would  lie  awake  hours  wondering  when  the 
patter  would  cease,  but  it  ended  only  in  my  falling  asleep. 

Crowded  as  may  be  the  world  centers,  such  as  New 
York  and  London  and  Paris,  one  accustomed  to  them 
doesn't  wonder  nearly  so  much  as  he  does  at  the 
ceaseless  processions  in  Japan.  The  steady  streams  of 
humanity  which  course  through  the  main  streets  and 
by-streets  of  this  little  Empire  are  simply  amazing.  Of 
course,  in  a  measure  this  is  due  to  the  narrow  streets  and 
the  confusion  of  traffic  with  pedestrians.  But  this  not- 
withstanding, one  gazes  out  upon  an  Oriental  street  with 
no  little  misgiving  who  knows  what  population  means  to 
the  peace  of  the  world. 

Long  after  the  noise  of  the  tea-house  had  subsided 
I  would  stand  and  gaze  out  across  Kobe,  out  to  where 
the  pneumatic  hammers  were  incessantly  thundering 
away  at  the  steel  hull  of  the  superdreadnought — the 
Ise — which  was  then  being  built  at  the  shipyards.  And 
I  would  wonder  what  it  was  being  made  to  protect. 
This?  This  laughter  and  hilarity  of  nankin,  who 
spend  their  profits  at  these  tea-houses?  And  I  looked 
farther  out  over  Japan  and  saw  fifty  millions  working, 
or  rather  trying  to  do  what  specialization  and  organiza 
tion  have  done  elsewhere — doing  it  in  the  same  slip- 
shod, crude,  old-fashioned  way  as  it  was  being  done  in 
this  very  little  household  into  which  chance  had  brought 
me.  And  I  just  wondered. 


IV 

SAKE    AND    SONG 

kROM  my  balcony,  late  one  afternoon,  I 
looked  down  upon  the  street.  From  out 
of  the  Tokiwa  tea-house  came  two  geisha, 
gorgeously  dressed  in  their  tremendous  bows 
of  richly  colored  silk  obi  (girdles)  round 
their  fantastically  embroidered  kimonos — 
two  tiny  mites  absolutely  smothered  in  finery.  "They 
are  being  introduced  to  tea-house  managers,"  the  boy 
in  the  house  informed  me.  "And  the  two  men  walking 
behind  them  are  their  new  masters." 

Oddly  enough,  just  a  few  minutes  later,  a  large,  well- 
fed  cow  was  being  driven  along  the  same  street  by  a 
Japanese  farmer.  She,  too,  had  some  finery  on  her — a 
red-colored  covering  thrown  across  her  back  and  hanging 
in  braids  down  her  sides.  She  was  being  taken  to  a 
temple  to  celebrate  the  passing  of  the  period  considered 
dangerous  to  growing  rice. 

Already  the  waitresses  in  their  little  caged  chamber 
across  the  way  were  squatting  before  their  mirrors,  their 
breasts  bare.  Then  the  usual  arrivals  of  geisha  in  rick- 
shaws and  the  renewal  of  the  screams  of  laughter  left 
off  at  twelve  the  night  before;  men  half  drunk  pursuing 
girls  who  are  not  afraid  of  being  caught,  but  are  paid  for 
pretending  to  resist.  Or  some  special  geisha,  fan  in 
hand,  kicking  her  trailing  robes  about  in  what  is  thought 
to  be  a  dance — studied,  exact,  monotonous.  The  even- 
ing wears  on;  again  there  is  quiet.  The  half-dozen  little 


56  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

waitresses,  having  passed  in  and  out  among  the  guests 
serving  food  and  sake  for  hours  on  end,  must  be 
wet  with  perspiration.  Yet  they  still  have  their  own 
beds  to  spread.  To  me,  above,  they  seem  to  move 
noiselessly.  Hardly  caged  animals;  yet  not  unlike 
them.  For  an  hour  more  they  go  backward  and  for- 
ward, apparently  accomplishing  nothing,  even  as  before 
they  seemed  endlessly  doing  nothing.  They  loll  about 
on  the  mats  with  quite  becoming  ease  and  grace.  A  long 
strip  commences  to  unwind  endlessly.  It  is  the  obi 
being  put  aside  for  the  night.  Not  as  gorgeous  as  that 
the  geisha  wear,  but  just  as  long  and  as  conventional. 
A  match  strikes;  the  quick  puff  of  smoke  from  the 
tiny  pipe — and  the  pinch  of  tobacco  is  exhausted. 
Another  is  pressed  into  the  little  bowl;  another  and 
another.  Again  endless  movement  with  nothing  done. 
What  long  hours  wasted  against  the  need  of  sleep,  it 
seems.  But  even  in  such  slight  tasks  life  finds  satis- 
faction. The  day  is  long,  they  seem  to  say.  How  shall 
I  pass  it  through,  how  fill  the  time  of  living?  To- 
morrow? Oh,  plenty  of  time  for  sleep.  The  day  is  long 
and  duties  come  aplenty.  They  appear  and  disappear, 
nothing  immodest  in  their  movements.  And  then  each 
creeps  within  the  heavy  futon  (quilts),  rests  her  head 
upon  the  wooden  pillow,  and  the  last  one  draws  the  paper 
sliding  window  across,  leaving  nothing  but  shadows  for 
me  to  look  upon.  So,  I  am  afraid,  must  I  creep  away  to 
sleep  ? 

Yet  across  the  city,  beyond  the  veil  of  simple  tasks 
concealed,  over  a  deep-blue  gulch  to  where  glitter  innu- 
merable lights,  from  over  yonder  comes  the  sound  of  the 
incessant  pneumatic  hammers. 

These  were  the  Japanese  narikin  that  day  spending 
fortunes  earned  easily  out  of  the  war. 

But  what  is  it  that  induces  so  much  noise  and  laughter? 
What  can  the  grown-up  Japanese  see  in  these  tiny  little 


WHO  BUT  THE  GEISHA  57 

mites,  or  even  their  more  grown-up  sisters,  to  lavish  so 
much  wealth  and  dignity  upon  them?  To  a  sober 
western  observer  it  seems  the  height  of  absurdity,  and 
in  one  way  is  a  striking  commentary  on  Japanese 
character.  The  amusement,  from  our  point  of  view, 
is  extremely  effeminate:  clapping  of  hands,  playing 
games  with  the  hands  such  as  the  children  play ;  chasing 
after  girls  while  three-quarters  drunk — such  is  the  round 
of  pleasure  which  night  after  night  I  witnessed  from 
my  room. 

True  there  were  more  dignified  performances,  as  when 
the  Minister  of  Communications  came  to  stay  there. 
An  elaborate  dinner  was  given,  and  the  most  attractive 
geisha  obtainable  were  ordered.  As  I  looked  through 
the  thin  gauze  curtains  which  hung  across  the  inner  open 
doorway  it  seemed  like  some  fairy  setting.  A  row  of 
men  had  squatted  upon  the  mats,  eating  a  meal  endlessly 
various.  There  seemed  end  neither  to  dishes  nor  to  ap- 
petite. The  sake  flowed  freely.  Then  the  geisha  com- 
menced to  dance,  and  a  more  gorgeous  spectacle  could 
not  be  found  anywhere.  The  Minister  himself,  though 
preserving  the  utmost  dignity,  was  not  too  distasteful  of 
the  grosser  enjoyments.  Applause  was  profuse.  But 
the  guests  disbanded  somewhat  earlier  than  usual — at 
eleven  o'clock. 

It  is  customary  to  observe  all  sorts  of  events,  business 
or  otherwise,  personal  or  national,  with  similar  f eastings, 
and  frequently  foreigners  are  invited.  Especially  was 
this  so  during  the  war  and  when  the  armistice  and  peace 
were  celebrated.  Then  narikin  gave  dinners  which  vied 
in  elaborateness  with  those  of  the  West. 

But  the  majority  of  evenings  were  spent  in  riotous  ca- 
rousing in  which  Bacchus  proved  himself  no  anachronism. 

However  much  all  other  forms  of  Japanese  social  life 
may  be  closed  to  him,  no  foreigner  is  ever  a  total  out- 
sider to  these  affairs.  He  is  bound  sooner  or  later  to 


58  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

become  friendly  with  some  Japanese,  and  few  Japanese 
have  any  conception  of  entertainment  other  than  with 
the  geisha.  And  I  was  no  exception.  I  had  gone  to 
Osaka  one  day,  and  there,  at  a  commercial  exhibition, 
met  a  gentleman,  who  proved  to  be  my  preceptor  ini- 
tiating me  into  the  amenities  of  geishadom.  My  friend 
— for  so  I  may  now  call  him — was  a  sober  little  gentle- 
man devoted  to  his  unusually  charming  young  wife. 
"You  wait  for  me  half  an  hour  and  I  be  free  to  go  with 
you  show  you  Osaka.  I  will  introduce  you  to  my  best 
of  friend.  You  American,  I  know.  I  lived  in  America 
ten  years.  My  wife  was  born  in  America.  You  wait 
half  an  hour.  I  promise."  And  that  was  my  beginning. 

In  a  sense  the  Japanese  are  the  most  sociable  people 
in  the  world.  I  found  myself  taken  in  by  strangers 
everywhere,  in  just  such  a  free  and  easy  manner.  Yet 
with  the  men  at  the  boarding-house  I  found  it  almost 
impossible  to  become  intimate.  While  home  we  were 
very  friendly,  but  they  never  asked  me  to  join  them  in 
any  adventure.  Girl  friends  are  things  practically 
unknown  to  them.  Except  the  geisha,  whom,  other  than 
his  sisters,  is  a  man  to  know?  During  my  stay  there 
my  neighbor  once  brought  up  two  girls  on  a  visit; 
one  was  Eurasian,  the  other  pure  native.  The  absence 
of  real  privacy  in  Japanese  houses  minimizes  any  sus- 
picion which  might  attach  itself  to  such  a  visit.  I  was 
introduced  to  them.  I  tried  to  be  sociable,  especially 
as  they  both  spoke  English  fluently,  but  my  efforts 
failed. 

Come  to  the  home  of  the  westerner  and  his  wife  will 
entertain  you.  The  Japanese  girl  gets  no  such  training 
and  never  knows  what  it  is  to  be  sociable  with  men. 
Therefore  the  Japanese  cannot  understand  our  courtesies 
and  attention  to  young  women.  Naturally,  they  put 
upon  it  the  wrong  interpretation. 

Among  the  young  men  living  at  the  house,  the  subject 


PRIDE  AND  MORALITY  59 

of  women  seldom  came  up  for  discussion.  From  all 
appearances,  they  might  all  have  been  celibate  priests. 
One  day,  however,  we  were  watching  the  girls  in  the 
tea-house  across  the  way,  and  I  led  them  on  to  talk  about 
morality  in  Japan. 

"Do  young  men  ever  have  girl  friends?"  I  asked 
one. 

"Oh  yes,"  he  answered,  "they  are  beginning  to,  more 
and  more." 

"Well,"  I  ventured,  "do  they  ever  bring  girls  up  to 
their  rooms  at  their  boarding-houses?" 

"No,  they  don't.  It  wouldn't  be  allowed,"  he  assured 
me.  "In  one  house  in  which  I  lived  two  men  occasionally 
brought  women  home  with  them  for  the  night.  They 
were  star  boarders  and  the  housekeeper  put  up  with  it. 
But  it's  against  the  law  except  at  tea-houses." 

The  general  tone  of  conversation  with  these  young 
men  was  always  restrained  and  decent.  They  spoke 
with  a  gentility  which  is  the  way  of  the  thoughtful  and 
educated  young  Japanese.  Notwithstanding  that  drink- 
ing is  nowhere  taboo,  neither  of  these  two,  on  my  floor, 
drank.  They  were  not  Christian,  and  even  for  Buddhism 
they  had  little  regard,  as  is  the  case  with  most  educated 
Japanese.  Still,  they  intimated  that  they  did  not  look 
with  favor  upon  licentiousness,  and  were  chauvinistically 
ashamed  of  their  restricted  districts — the  cages. 

"Foreigners,"  said  one  of  them,  in  answer  to  my 
question,  "are  perhaps  on  the  average  more  moral  than 
Japanese;  but  in  principle  our  ways  are  just  as  good  as 
yours.  Foreigners,  however,  seem  to  us  too  proud." 
It  was  curious,  for  from  my  way  of  thinking  he  had 
completely  reversed  it.  To  me  foreigners  are  by  no  means 
more  moral.  Some  are  too  proud,  but  it's  a  different 
pride  from  that  of  the  Japanese.  Foreigners  are  more 
used  to  being  proud,  but  the  Japanese  stamps  and 
swaggers  because  he  doesn't  know  how  to  be  proud 


60  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

with  dignity.  He  simulates  or  emulates  too  much  the 
old-time  samurai  officiousness. 

I  found  it  impossible  to  be  pals  with  Japanese.  Either 
the  man  is  a  nankin  in  the  making  and  takes  it  upon 
himself  to  entertain  you  on  behalf  of  his  country,  never 
letting  you  pay,  or  else  he  is  poor  and  unashamed  of 
his  poverty,  and  always  lets  you  pay.  And  in  both 
cases  it  is  pride.  Yet  he  is  overawed  by  any  foreigner, 
and  when  he  is  poor  he  makes  no  pretensions. 

My  friend,  Mr.  Suzuki,  brought  his  "best  of  friend," 
Hayashi,  a  Hyogo  exporter,  with  him  to  my  place  one 
day.  We  looked  across,  as  one  could  not  help  doing, 
to  the  Tokiwa.  We  chatted  about  it.  "Have  you  ever 
been  there?"  he  asked.  I  confessed.  "Well,  I  will  take 
you."  And  he  was  as  good  as  his  word.  The  entrance 
below  was  as  attractive  in  its  simplicity  as  a  mere 
entrance  could  be.  The  waitresses  knelt  upon  the  mats 
at  the  door  to  receive  their  guests.  The  smooth,  un- 
painted  woodwork,  the  expensive  screens,  the  spacious 
rooms — one  felt  he  had  come  into  a  great  temple  turned 
pagan.  Half  a  dozen  geisha  had  been  ordered,  and  we 
were  assigned  to  an  open  room  on  an  extension,  with  an 
unobstructed  view  of  Kobe  from  every  angle.  It  was 
merely  a  corner  of  the  great  open  garden,  as  it  were. 

The  girls  showed  they  were  being  taxed  unduly,  having 
to  entertain  a  foreigner.  I  could  not  speak  to  them 
very  well,  and  put  myself  in  the  hands  of  my  friend. 
Being  new  to  these  intimacies,  I  requested  that  the  girls 
dance  for  me,  as  otherwise  I  should  have  been  on  the 
outside  of  the  jollity — none  of  the  witticisms  which 
provoked  so  much  laughter  being  interpreted  to  me.  I 
thought  perhaps  my  friends  regarded  them  as  too  vulgar 
for  the  ears  of  a  foreigner. 

The  geisha  is  not  an  over-attractive  personality.  Her 
grace  is  too  cramped,  too  limited.  Her  movements 
while  dancing  arc  extremely  proper,  according  to  code, 


.  .  .  CAME  A  LITTLE  GIRL  61 

and  seldom,  if  ever,  rise  to  any  terpsichorean  liveliness  as 
we  know  it.  She  turns  about  on  the  balls  of  her  feet, 
kicking  the  trailing  gowns  outward,  not  immodestly, 
and  manipulates  a  fan  in  definitely  prescribed  ways. 
The  fan  is  the  essence  of  the  art,  next  to  which  in  im- 
portance is  the  movement  of  the  hands.  Otherwise, 
neither  the  music  nor  the  dance,  per  se,  quicken  my 
artistic  sense  to  a  thrill. 

They  taught  me  a  song.  The  melody  was  simple  and 
so  monotonous  that  it  almost  wearied  me.  But  the 
words,  when  interpreted  made  me  understand — and 
then  I  sang  with  them,  and  loved  Japan  in  that  song. 

Literally  it  is  this : 

I  so  de  meisho  wa  Oharai  Sama  yo 
(By  a  famous  beach,  0  Kara  San) 

Matsu  ga  ntiyamasu  lionobonolo 
(Pine  tree  sees  faintly) 

Matsu  ga  miyamasu  iso  iso  honobonoto. 
(Pine  tree  sees  blithesome  faintly). 

They  seemed  to  be  drunk  with  the  very  repetition  of  the 
song.  To  me  it  was  but  a  translation,  and  I  could  see 
the  picture  it  presented.  But  they  sang  it  over  and 
over  again,  taught  it  to  me  with  a  patience  which  was 
either  childish  or  sublime — that  is,  either  without  under- 
standing or  with  a  sense  of  the  oneness  of  the  universe, 
almost  as  though  it  were  a  prayer.  They  repeated  it 
over  and  over  again,  and  it  was  the  only  song  sung  that 
evening  with  any  interest.  It  seemed  to  be  part  of  them 
and  to  emanate  as  the  perfume  from  the  rose,  as  color 
from  a  sunset. 

We  were  absorbed  in  this  song.  The  girl  who  took 
it  upon  herself  to  instruct  me  was  most  vivacious  and 
attractive.  I  almost  forgot  my  surroundings,  and  paid 
no  attention  to  those  coming  or  going.  Suddenly,  into 


62  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

the  monotony  of  the  dancing  and  the  singing  came  a 
little  girl.  She  was  just  fourteen.  Her  silks  and  em- 
broideries were  fabulous,  and  the  artificially  white  skin 
was  solid  and  fresh.  She  was  a  tiny  little  thing,  and 
should  be  forgiven  if  the  gorgeous  raiment  made  her 
think  of  herself  and  feel  happy.  She  came  in  with  the 
usual  bow,  sat  down  quietly,  but  the  gaze  of  every  one 
of  us  was  instantly  upon  her,  and  the  faces  of  the  other 
geisha  showed  both  satisfaction  and  envy.  The  dear 
little  thing  felt  happy,  and  yet  dared  not  give  expression 
to  that  happiness.  So  that  every  little  while  a  smile 
would  turn  on  her  lips  and  contract  or  be  suppressed. 
She  was  happy,  but  still  it  must  have  hurt  her  not  to  be 
able  to  be  happy  girlishly. 

Six  months  or  more  later  I  met  her  at  another  geisha 
party.  She  didn't  recognize  me,  but  finally  recalled 
the  evening.  But  what  a  change !  She  was  already  the 
favorite  of  a  foreigner,  with  all  the  tricks  and  self- 
conscious  indifference  of  her  profession. 

One  evening  Mr.  Suzuki  and  I  decided  to  go  to  see 
more  of  geisha  life.  I  could  see  that  his  wife  didn't 
approve  of  it,  but  he  was  master  and  no  argument  was 
necessary.  The  geisha  takes  the  place  of  the  club,  and 
no  woman  will  dare  deny  that  to  her  husband.  The 
geisha  is  not  his  companion — she  is  merely  a  specialist 
in  the  entertainment  of  men.  The  wife  entertains  him 
at  home,  the  geisha  abroad ;  and  if  he  wants  a  concubine 
or  two,  there  is  no  law  prohibiting  it.  The  present 
Emperor  is  the  first  to  have  adopted  monogamy,  but 
his  father  had  five  wives,  himself  the  son  by  a  side-wife, 
the  Lady  Yanagiwara. 

We  moved  along  through  the  vast  crowd  which  had" 
swarmed  the  streets  on  its  way  to  a  temple,  and  took 
to  a  back  street  or  roadway  along  the  bank  of  the 
Minatogawa.  There  were  neither  lights  nor  pavements, 
and  the  dust  raised  by  the  scraping  of  the  geta  (clogs) 


GEISHA  ARE  INDISPENSABLE  TO  A  MAN  S  ENJOYMENT  OF  CHERRY-BLOSSOMS 


NOWHERE  WAS  A  DELATED  ARMISTICE  CELEBRATED  LIKE  THIS 


BEERU,   STEAMING  RICE,  AND  MAID  AS  HOPEFUL  AS  THE  PLUM-BLOSSOM 


NOT  THE  OUTER  SHAPE,  BUT  THE  POSSIBILITIES,   MAKE  THESE  TEA-HOUSES 


AN  EIGHTY  PER  CENT  BEAUTY  63 

was  distressing.  The  dark,  starlit  night  did  not  min- 
ister to  the  delicacy  of  Japanese  atmosphere;  only  the 
strangeness  was  real. 

We  dropped  down  among  the  shacks,  the  dirty,  ratty 
places,  wandered  through  narrow  alleys  amid  squalor 
and  poverty.  Not  our  kind  of  poverty,  though — not  so 
degraded,  but  more  primitive.  In  Japan  poverty  does 
not  arouse  so  much  sympathy,  because  it  is  not  so 
definitely  below  the  general  condition.  It  is  so  common 
that  we  take  no  more  notice  of  it  than  of  a  poor  horse  or 
cow. 

Farther  on  we  were  in  alleys  lined  with  cleaner,  better, 
and  more  luxurious  houses.  This  is  where  the  geisha 
live.  They  have  no  homes,  for  a  Japanese  could  not  be 
gay  in  the  presence  of  his  parents  or  the  parents  of  a 
geisha.  The  parents  being  older,  he  would  have  to  sit 
still  and  be  sober.  Consequently  the  geisha  have 
their  own  quarters.  The  proprietors  of  these  houses 
are  all  "respectable."  They  look  after  the  girls  with 
law-abiding  interest. 

When  we  found  the  appointed  place,  we  entered. 
The  clean,  somewhat  charming  old  woman  brought  out 
sheets  of  paper  on  which  the  names  of  at  least  eight 
hundred  girls  were  printed.  When  a  girl  is  hired,  a 
hole  is  punched  with  a  toothpick  over  her  name;  when 
she  returns,  a  hole  is  punched  beneath  it.  The  girls  are 
ordered  from  a  central  office,  where  a  strict  register  is 
kept  of  their  movements.  To  wander  over  to  one  of 
these  offices  reminds  one  of  a  miniature  stock-exchange. 
The  atmosphere  of  intense  activity,  of  the  passing  of 
great  possessions  from  one  to  another,  makes  of  it  the 
most  lively  place  in  the  quarters. 

When  the  girls  my  friend  favored  arrived,  we  were  well 
into  the  feast.  The  normal  length  of  a  Japanese  meal  is 
about  three  and  a  half  hours.  I  sat  with  my  friends, 
watching  the  meat  and  the  greens  sizzling  on  the  brazier, 


64  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

eating  little  pieces  at  set  intervals.  It  was  tantalizing. 
I  could  have  devoured  the  whole  of  it  post-haste,  but 
had  to  wait  each  time  for  some  one  to  take  a  chopstick- 
ful  first.  It  was  a  delicious  torture,  for  each  mouthful 
was  worth  the  waiting  for.  Sukiyaki,  it  is  called,  which 
means  ' '  en j  oy able  fry. ' ' 

Six  geisha  came  in  and  sat.  .  .  .  Two  of  them  talked, 
and  my  stammering  Japanese  formed  part  of  the  amuse- 
ment, if  not  all;  but  there  was  no  dancing,  playing,  or 
singing.  What  they  were  being  paid  for  under  these 
circumstances  I  could  not  tell.  It  only  indicated  the 
real  evil  of  the  geisha  habit.  They  were  neither  friends 
nor  entertainers,  just  simply  parasites,  or — let  us  give 
them  some  place  in  life — wallflowers. 

My  friend  asked  what  I  thought  of  their  looks;  I 
indicated  which  I  considered  the  prettiest.  No,  that 
was  not  his  choice.  "The  one  to  my  right,"  he  said, 
"forty-five  per  cent;  the  next,  thirty-five  per  cent;  then 
fifty-five  per  cent  [the  one  I  had  indicated],  and  lastly, 
seventy-five  per  cent."  That  is  the  quaint  way  they 
have  of  passing  judgment  on  women.  Later  on,  an- 
other girl  came  in.  Indeed,  she  was  the  best  and  we 
assessed  her  at  eighty  per  cent.  She  was  not  a  beauty, 
being  a  little  too  stout,  but  she  had  charm  and  character 
and  "go."  She  did  everything,  some  things  a  little  vul- 
garly, some  charmingly,  and  some  revealing  training  and 
education.  She  was  the  favorite.  She  liked  foreigners, 
knew  a  few  words  of  English,  and  kept  the  lot  of  us  in  a 
merry  mood.  What  the  main  topic  of  conversation  was, 
however,  I  never  knew.  Japanese  are  most  exasperating 
in  this,  for  they  will  carry  on  miles  of  conversation  even 
about  yourself,  without  as  much  as  attempting  to  bring 
you  into  the  affair.  You  simply  have  to  extract  an 
interpretation,  so  shy  and  evasive  are  they. 

Thus  another  four  hours  of  life  passed  on.  It  was  not 
a  bore,  yet  certainly  not  interesting.  It  cost  us  thirty 


PLAYING  SAMURAI  65 

yen,  five  dollars  each,  dozens  of  bottles  of  aerated  water 
and  beer,  food  and  fruit,  jokes  and  laughter.  One  girl 
played  the  violin — an  altogether  new  thing  in  Japan- 
but  one  other  didn't  so  much  as  make  a  remark  all  even- 
ing. Yet  this  is  what  is  in  so  great  demand  in  Japan,  so 
much  so  that  one  must  employ  these  girls  days  ahead  of 
time  if  one  is  to  have  any  choice  at  all.  And  thus  is 
man's  sanity  secured. 

I  had  expressed  an  interest  in  the  historical  phase  of 
this  life  which  reminded  my  friend  that  he  could  show 
me  what  life  in  old  Japan  had  been  like  in  a  vivid  way. 
So  a  few  weeks  later  he  called  upon  me  again  and 
asked  if  I  would  come  out  for  the  evening.  This 
time  it  was  distant  from  the  usual  geisha  quarters,  off 
from  the  old  road  which  before  the  coming  of  the  foreign- 
ers had  been  the  main  street  of  Hyogo — Kobe's  parent 
city.  Even  after  the  coming  of  the  white  man,  this 
road  had  played  its  dramatic  part,  for,  to  avoid  passing 
the  hated  foreign  settlement,  the  samurai  and  daimyo 
had  taken  to  traveling  to  Kyoto  by  turning  northward 
and  cutting  through  the  hills  over  what  is  now  known 
as  Arima-michi  (Arima  highway).  To  this  hidden  inn 
along  Arima-michi  we  went  that  evening. 

Besides  dancing  and  singing  and  now  more  friendly 
intimacy,  the  proprietor  brought  out  her  store  of  ancient 
possessions  which  she  keeps  for  just  such  occasions. 
Japanese  who  wish  to  play  samurai,  or  ancient  noble- 
men, can  here  satisfy  their  desires.  We  regaled  ourselves 
in  these  old-time  costumes  and  acted  scenes  and  samurai 
practices  so  romantic  to  them.  Thus  for  a  few  moments 
I  was  a  Chinese  patriarch,  and  then  a  powerful  shogun 
in  glittering  gowns  with  a  tiny  little  wife  to  follow  me  and 
obey.  Every  one  paid  me  the  respect  due  a  superior. 
My  friend  was  a  valiant  samurai  dressed  in  weighty 
armor.  He  depicted  a  departure  for  war,  the  scene  be- 
tween himself  and  his  sweetheart,  their  marriage,  and  the 


66  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

sad  moments  of  parting.  They  acted  as  though  born  to 
it;  not,  however,  without  a  conscious  show  of  ridicule. 

Sake  began  to  flow  and  all  became  cheerful.  Even  the 
old  woman,  the  proprietor's  wife,  imbibed  freely  at  her 
guests'  expense.  She  was  soon  quite  gay  and  avowed 
most  emphatically  that  she  loved  me.  Her  old  husband 
finally  came  in  and  good-naturedly  picked  her  up  and 
carried  her  out  of  the  room.  His  kindliness  completely 
whitewashed  her  helpless  coarseness. 

The  8o-per-cent  geisha  of  the  previous  party  was 
present.  Her  name — that  is,  her  geisha  name — was 
Tamosabura.  She  was  dark-complexioned  and  left 
herself  so.  She  did  not  paint.  She  was  twenty-five,  and 
admitted  it.  She  was  the  most  intelligent  and  had  the 
finest  character,  but  hid  it.  And  when  I  was  just  about 
to  forget  that  she  was  a  geisha  she  would  make  some 
suggestive  remark  which  made  me  wish  men  did  not  have 
to  be  made  "happy"  and  girls  subjected  to  a  training  in 
subtleties  to  achieve  it  for  them. 

She  affected  a  great  liking  for  me,  but  I  am  sure  she 
didn't  even  dislike  me — a  red  devil  of  a  foreigner.  She 
pretended  to  be  happy,  but  she  was  not  sad.  She  was 
slightly  curious  about  me,  yet  mocked  me.  I  struggled 
to  learn  Japanese,  a  language  the  value  of  the  usage 
of  which  was  a  vague  possibility  to  me  wrapped  in  a 
mantle  of  promise.  She  learned  a  few  English  words 
and  showed  her  contempt  for  the  language  by  using 
them  to  amuse  the  illiterate  and  the  simple-minded. 

She  rose  to  go.  It  was  half  past  ten,  but  she  said  she 
had  to  keep  another  engagement.  In  putting  away  her 
samisen  (the  Japanese  guitar  which  has  no  music  in  it) 
the  others  came  to  her  assistance.  My  attention  was 
called  to  this.  It  was  a  show  of  courtesy  to  which  she, 
as  a  superior,  was  entitled.  And  with  more  sweep  and 
motion  than  is  common  with  most  Japanese  women,  she 
slipped  out  of  the  door. 


REFLECTIONS  IN  A  RICKSHAW  67 

Things  fell  flat  after  that,  though  we  did  not  leave  till 
one  in  the  morning.  There  was  then  neither  tram  nor 
rickshaw.  The  concern  for  my  safety  all  of  them  mani- 
fested was  indeed  remarkable.  The  girls  were  most 
considerate  and  kindly,  a  loveliness  in  feminine  charac- 
ter which  always  wins  western  men's  sympathies.  One 
woman  went  ahead  and  presently  returned  with  a 
kuruma.  With  a  kurumaya  san  they  would  trust  me 
to  arrive  unharmed. 

My  way  lay  through  one  of  the  outer  regions  of  the 
city.  Through  the  narrow  little  byways  of  Hyogo  my 
sturdy  rickshaw  man  bore  me.  There  was  so  much 
blackness  round  about  that  this  trustworthy  coolie 
shone  with  human  radiance.  Alone,  it  might  not  have 
been  altogether  well  for  me  to  wander  away  out  here. 
With  him,  panting  and  shifting  the  place  of  the  shafts,  I 
rode  with  delight  and  composure.  The  electric  lights  at 
every  gate  seemed  sleepy  within  their  nooks  and  corners. 

I  had  time  and  ease  in  which  to  reflect  on  the  night 
and  its  experiences.  One  certainly  grows  to  love  these 
people  with  a  melancholy  love.  They  are  not  ugly,  I 
thought,  but  certainly  not  beautiful;  they  are  not  sad, 
but  certainly  not  happy;  they  are  not  prim,  but  cer- 
tainly not  free;  they  are  not  refined,  but  certainly  not 
vulgar.  What  are  they,  then?  They  are  geisha,  the 
product  of  a  feudalism  in  which  a  man  might  do  anything 
he  pleased,  aside  from  real  thinking.  They  are  a  special- 
ized institution.  Though  the  geisha  may  easily  be  a 
libertine  in  her  profession,  still  I  have  yet  to  see  her 
nightly  employer  take  any  public  liberties  with  her 
though  prostitute  she  may  be.  Hired  for  the  occasion, 
to  satisfy  the  pleasure-seeking,  she  still  maintains  her 
dignity.  Whatever  her  morals,  in  appearance  she  is  the 
most  circumspect  individual  in  the  world.  It  is  to  the 
credit  of  Japanese  unmorality  that,  using  their  women, 
they  do  not  torture  them  as  does  the  West. 


68  JAPAN— REAL  AND   IMAGINARY 

Japanese  have  no  women  friends,  only  wives,  servants, 
geisha  and  prostitutes.  Whereas  we  would  not  think 
of  going  out  for  an  evening's  pleasure  without  our 
girl  friends,  here  the  presence  of  women  must  be  paid 
for,  though  they  do  nothing  at  all  to  earn  their  fees.  And 
back  home,  my  friend's  little  wife  and  servant  were  sit- 
ting up  for  him,  for  she  told  me  that  on  all  occasions  she 
remains  up  till  he  comes,  and  would  not  sleep  through 
the  night  should  he  remain  away. 

Seven  o'clock  the  next  night.  Drooping  with  the 
somewhat  solemn  evening  are  the  low-hanging  clouds 
of  a  day's  rain.  The  white  breakers  gnaw  the  distant 
point  of  land ;  and  the  wind,  like  a  giant  tongue,  laps  the 
mouthlike  group  of  hills. 

It  is  the  same  tale  the  world  over,  only  in  a  somewhat 
different  setting  from  that  of  the  geisha.  The  tale  of 
the  prostitute.  In  old  Japan  she  was  regarded  as  much 
a  part  of  the  community  as  any  woman.  And  as  late  as 
1918,  in  Kobe,  and  even  to  this  day  in  Yokohama  and 
a  few  other  places,  she  was  exposed  without  compunc- 
tion to  the  public.  She  was  kept  in  what  are  called 
restricted  districts,  but  that  word  does  not  refer  to  what 
goes  on  in  them.  It  is  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  next-door 
neighbor  to  the  geisha  quarters.  There  is  no  singing 
and  playing  of  the  guitar  as  in  the  latter  district,  but 
there  is  no  dearth  of  noise  or  of  general  activity.  The 
streets  are  lighted  up  to  the  third  story.  Men,  women, 
and  children,  who  are  not  themselves  part  of,  but  are 
party  to  the  district,  abound.  Their  homes  are  there, 
and  they  are  part  of  the  system  only  in  so  far  as  they 
earn  their  living  by  supplying  rice  and  drink  to  the 
sprightly.  The  street  is  unusually  wide;  shrubs  grow 
in  plots  between.  By  about  seven  or  seven-thirty,  no 
matter  how  threatening  the  sky  above,  life  here  begins 
to  glow.  Entering  the  first  dark  door  over  which 


HUMAN  CAGES  69 

striped  curtains  dangle  in  the  wind,  you  find  some  men 
or  women  sitting  on  benches  or  chairs.  They  will  im- 
mediately advance  upon  you,  urging  you  to  patronize 
their  establishment  and  telling  you  at  what  price.  To 
the  right  or  to  the  left  is  a  well-lighted  room  open  to 
view  but  for  three-quarter-inch  wooden  strips  set  about 
an  inch  apart.  They  are  usually  stained  brown.  With- 
in, in  brilliant  light,  sit  anywhere  from  six  to  two  dozen 
girls,  clothed  in  brilliantly  colored  kimonos,  painting, 
powdering,  making  themselves  up  for  the  night.  They 
are  coarse,  they  are  ugly,  fat,  unsightly,  and  the  powder 
and  paint  make  them  still  more  unsightly.  But  that 
does  not  seem  to  matter.  The  semicircle  they  generally 
form  at  the  farthest  end  of  the  room  is  every  once  in  a 
while  broken — a  girl  temporarily  absent.  There  they 
sit,  however,  receive  insulting  remarks  without  squirm- 
ing, show  themselves  pleased  when  accepted — but  seldom 
make  any  effort  themselves  to  induce  patronage. 

The  odd  part  of  it  is  that  they,  and  not  the  men,  should 
be  in  the  cages.  Within  the  darkened  hallway  hilarious, 
boisterous  men  come  in  and  go  out,  searching  from 
house  to  house  for  girls  to  their  liking.  And  one  could 
follow  them  all  along  the  street  on  the  left,  come  back 
up  again  on  the  right,  turn  off  into  the  narrower  street 
to  the  right — go  where  one  will  within  this  district,  and 
the  same  cages,  the  same  women,  the  same  conditions 
abound — because  of  the  law. 

It  is  legalized  in  Japan,  and  though  latterly  the 
exhibition  of  girls  has  been  stopped  in  Kobe  and  Osaka, 
and  enlarged  portraits  substituted,  the  traffic  goes  on 
just  as  much.  Yet  crude  and  horrible  as  the  cages  are, 
and  cruel,  the  practice  is  not  so  dangerous  to  the  com- 
munity nor  so  disgusting  as  our  street- walkers.  During 
my  years  in  Japan  I  recall  being  approached  by  women 
on  the  streets  only  three  times,  and  in  all  Japan  I  have 
yet  to  come  across  licentiousness  that  is  not  mere  prosti- 


70  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

tution  and  that  cannot  be  found  as  readily  in  every  other 
country  in  the  world. 

One  soon  tires  of  the  geisha  and  their  accomplish- 
ments, but  the  resident  in  Japan  soon  learns  to  endure 
with  unpatient  resignation  these  Oriental  amenities. 
For  it  is  indeed  a  matter  of  looking  for  a  square  egg  if 
one  tries  to  find  a  place  without  them.  Even  should 
one  keep  entirely  away  from  their  quarters  and  the  tea- 
houses, the  nights  are  so  full  with  their  shouting  and 
playing  that,  willy-nilly,  one  has  them  with  him.  And 
when  the  summer  comes,  or  during  plum-blossom  or 
cherry-blossom  viewing,  the  tumult  drifts  into  the  public 
parks — and  then  one  must  indeed  say  farewell  to  peace. 

It  was  while  trying  to  avoid  one  such  place  that  a 
friend  of  mine  and  I  turned  down  the  street  toward  the 
slums  and  the  factories,  instead  of  taking  to  the  upper 
paths  along  the  hill.  The  houses  were  monotonously 
regular,  dirty,  and  poor,  their  only  virtue  being  that 
they  were  low  and  permitted  an  almost  unobstructed 
view  of  the  hills  above.  Occasionally  the  landscape 
opened,  disclosing  a  glimpse  of  the  sea,  like  the  carelessly 
closed  kimono  which  often  affords  a  peep  at  the  Japanese 
woman's  breasts. 

When  we  reached  the  foot  of  the  hills  we  turned  to  the 
left  because  the  way  to  the  right  was  so  prohibitive. 
The  factories  with  their  green  and  brown  gaseous  smoke 
were  too  much  for  us.  We  had  not  gone  very  far  when 
we  came  upon  some  buildings  which  puzzled  us.  They 
looked  like  barracks  or  prisons,  yet  we  knew  they  could 
be  neither.  The  window  openings  were  about  two  feet 
square,  closed  with  thin  strips  pasted  over  with  paper. 
We  were  discoursing  somewhat  generally  upon  the 
materialism  of  modern  Japan  when  a  voice,  coarse  yet 
sweet,  rang  out  from  the  nearest  aperture.  It  made  us 
stop  and  look  each  other  in  the  face.  Something  drew 


THE  DARK  VAULTS  OF  NADA      71 

us  close  to  each  other,  as  though  the  whole  of  that 
which  is  loveliest  in  all  Japan  had  enveloped  us.  It  was 
immediately  followed  by  a  chorus  of  voices  unutter- 
ably sweet  and  wholesome.  Our  curiosity  became 
irresistible.  The  lure  was  so  great  that  we  decided  to 
find  out  what  these  men  were  doing. 

Entering  by  way  of  an  open  gate  in  the  high  board 
fence,  we  came  into  a  yard  of  picturesque  simplicity. 
In  the  corner  was  a  deep  well  over  which  stood  the  old- 
fashioned  well-sweep,  for  all  the  world  just  as  it  must 
have  stood  in  the  days  of  the  patriarchs.  Upon  a  ledge 
stood  a  Japanese,  bringing  the  water  up  as  rapidly  as 
possible  and  pouring  it  into  the  buckets  of  another. 
That  other,  when  his  two  pails  were  full,  shouldered 
them  on  his  yoke  and  with  a  jerky,  swinging  gait  passed 
on  into  the  darkened  building  beyond.  The  life  was  so 
primitive,  the  atmosphere  so  sober,  we  felt  we  had  sud- 
denly slipped  out  of  the  modern  rush  of  new  Japan  into 
something  we  shall  probably  find  at  the  other  end  of 
time  when  man  arrives.  Tremendous  tubs,  eight  feet 
in  diameter,  lay  about  the  yards,  wheel  after  wheel  of 
them.  Omar's  request  that  we  turn  down  "an  empty 
glass"  was  here  but  half  complied  with:  these  were 
empty,  but  on  their  sides,  waiting  to  be  turned  up  again. 
One  man  picked  up  a  single  bucket  of  water  and  strolled 
across  the  scene  as  it  is  said  men  did  in  Rachel's  days. 
And  the  bamboo  pole  see-sawed  its  way  between  heaven 
and  the  dark  depths  of  the  well,  awaking  visions  of 
eastern  life  now  hardly  Oriental. 

From  this  outer  yard  the  doors  stood  wide  into  the 
dungeon-like  safc^-cellars,  for  we  were  in  a  sake-brewing 
establishment.  Here  the  tremendous  tubs  stood  upright, 
six  and  seven  feet  high.  The  sweet-scented  sake  bubbled 
with  ferment;  and  in  and  about  the  tubs  moved  the 
men,  overgrown  dwarfs  of  a  raised  underworld. 

It  seemed  for  a  moment  that  our  coming  had  broken 


72  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

the  charm,  and  they  would  not  sing  again.  For  the  first 
time  necessity  seemed  to  me  a  spiritual  parent  instead 
of  an  earthly  one.  They  had  to  stir  their  tubs,  and  habit 
was  too  closely  allied  to  birth  to  be  interrupted  long  by  a 
mere  visitation  of  strange  foreigners.  Slowly  they  re- 
verted to  song  and  labor.  As  they  stood  on  the  rims  of 
the  monstrous  tubs,  their  staffs  sunk  into  the  thick,  white, 
foaming  rice  brew,  they  symbolized  living  monuments  of 
contentment  stirring  the  cups  of  forgetfulness  for  the 
world. 

Then  one  led  off,  and  his  voice  rang  out  clear  in  that 
darkened  vault — clear  as  the  thin  rays  of  light  which 
entered  through  the  cracks  in  the  paper  windows.  The 
other  three  men  took  up  the  strains,  and  then  they  fol- 
lowed one  another  in  perfect  rhythm,  to  which  they  kept 
time  by  beating  with  their  staff-mixers  on  the  bottoms. 
The  hands  holding  the  staffs  shot  out  full  length  and  came 
down  on  the  bottom  with  a  gentle  thud,  were  drawn  in 
and  raised  again,  one  after  the  other,  not  a  fraction  of  a 
second  out  of  time.  The  song  needed  no  words  of  ex- 
planation. The  paper  apertures  threw  little  light  on 
any  details.  Songs  without  words,  and  atmosphere 
without  trifles — and  for  a  moment  a  world  without 
progress.  Simple  folk  whose  hearts  are  free  from  affecta- 
tion can  make  their  untrained  voices  the  envy  of  great 
singers,  and  their  wooden  tools  the  peer  of  instruments. 
It  was  as  though  all  that  is  lovely  in  human  aspiration 
were  being  held  firm  to  reality  by  the  thud  of  a  staff. 
Relief  from  progress  and  striving  is  a  thrilling  intox- 
icant; whether  one  chooses  whisky  or  mere  illusion,  the 
result  is  all  the  same.  Whenever  I  think  back  to  my 
days  in  Japan  I  always  feel  the  contrast  between  the  vul- 
garities of  the  sake-drinking,  idle  Japanese  and  the  love- 
liness of  these  happy  toilers  there  in  the  dark  vaults  of 
Nada. 


V 

I     BECOME    A    HOUSEHOLDER 

[OMES  the  world  over  are  as  telescopes  through 
which  an  observer  may  look  out  upon  life, 
and  of  no  country  I  have  ever  been  to  is 
that  more  true  than  of  Japan.  But  the 
homes  in  Japan  are  the  dark  chambers  of 
these  instruments  to  the  foreigner,  for  seldom  does  he 
get  a  chance  to  see  into  them.  In  fact,  this  is  admitted 
by  even  the  best-traveled  Japanese,  and  almost  as 
though  that  seclusiveness  were  worthy  of  pride.  My 
efforts,  though  they  helped  me  to  understand  the  work- 
ings of  the  Japanese  mind,  were  not  crowned  with 
complete  success  till  I  got  a  home  of  my  own.  The 
circumstances  which  forced  the  change  upon  me  were 
these. 

One  day  the  housekeeper  failed  to  appear  at  my  meal- 
time. Oteru  San,  the  maid,  said  she  was  weeping  be- 
cause she  had  had  a  fight  with  her  husband.  Her  own 
story  to  me  was  that  she  had  received  news  of  her 
father's  death.  But  I  noticed  that  thenceforward  a 
woman  moved  about  the  house,  and  none  so  meek  but 
that  she  would  do  him  reverence.  She  spoke  gently 
and  in  a  loving  manner.  I  cannot  guarantee,  however, 
that  in  making  up  she  and  her  husband  kissed.  But 
there  seemed  little  doubt  that  she  had  put  whatever 
modernism  had  adorned  the  fringes  of  her  temper  upon 
the  shelf.  And  all  that  sweetness  of  resignation  and 
reserve  which  slept  within  the  lap  of  her  female  ancestry 


74  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

has  found  its  ancient  resting-place  again.  Cursed  be 
the  thought  of  any  further  violence  or  self-will  ever 
frightening  that  sobriety  into  action.  Peace,  peace,  of 
a  punished  variety  thereafter  lay  quite  meekly  in  the 
lap  of  our  boarding-house  domesticity. 

And  the  strong,  forgiving  husband  permitted  a  night 
out  at  the  moving  pictures,  washed  the  rice  and  dishes, 
nor  deigned  not  to  humble  himself  in  the  "unmanly" 
act  of  mopping  the  dust  from  the  hallway  floors. 

Peace  reigneth  in  our  household!  Buddha  and  our 
ancestors  be  praised! 

When  it  is  considered  that  Hayashi  San  was  not  legally 
married  to  Yamato  San  (as  is  often  the  case  in  Japan) 
his  kindliness  and  consideration  of  her  were  remarkable. 
He  could  have  left  her  at  a  moment's  notice.  Of  course, 
he  might  have  had  to  pay  her  a  sum  of  money.  But  he 
did  not  leave  her,  and  in  the  eight  months  during  which 
I  roomed  at  the  house  they  had  had  but  one  quarrel. 
She  got  the  worst  of  it,  but  she  was  a  selfish,  vain  person. 
He  was  even  content  to  be  called  by  her  name,  because 
she  ran  the  house,  and  everybody  called  her  to  account. 

But  there  is  a  longer  story  than  that.  It  was  dull  in 
the  house  those  days.  A  tragedy  was  working  itself  out, 
and  the  figure  of  the  housekeeper  was  in  the  center  of 
the  stage.  One  morning  she  stood  bent  over  the  basin, 
washing  her  face.  She  did  not  turn  and  smile  as  was 
her  wont,  but  slipped  down  the  stairs  without  once 
turning  to  bid  me  good  morning.  As  her  figure  de- 
scended the  steep  stairway  it  seemed  to  me  she  dipped 
into  the  darkness  of  despair. 

For  some  months  past  she  had  been  very  frequently 
ill.  " Kutabircinashita,"  she  would  always  say.  "Merely 
tired."  She  was  always  tired;  more  and  more  fre- 
quently tired.  Then  headaches.  One  day  the  two 
servants  were  treating  her.  One  was  lighting  punk  and 
depositing  the  burning  stuff  on  her  bare  back.  Then 


ONE  OUT  OF  TEN  75 

the  two  commenced  pounding  vigorously.  A  cure.  I 
had  often  wondered  why  so  many  Japanese  have  scars 
like  vaccination-marks  all  over  them.  But  the  case  went 
farther.  Numerous  medicines  began  to  be  seen  about. 

It  is  like  this.  There  were  ten  people  living  in  the 
house,  and  she  was  but  one.  Statisticians  tell  us  that 
one  out  of  every  ten  people  has  it.  One  out  of  every 
ten  masses  itself  into  staggering  figures  when  they  are 
withdrawn  from  the  flood  of  human  life.  But  terrible 
as  that  is,  it  is  nothing  at  all  compared  with  the  one 
you  meet  who  has  it.  That  one,  single  and  alone, 
throws  a  shadow  over  life;  that  one,  single  and  isolated, 
leaves  in  lonely  gloom  that  thing  we  all  preserve  so 
ardently — life.  It  is  but  one  life,  but  to  see  it  lonely, 
trying  to  re-establish  itself  against  such  odds,  is  terrible. 

Yet,  all  the  time,  while  she  knew  she  had  syphilis,  and 
had  had  several  injections  of  606  in  its  milder  Japanese 
form,  she  went  on  washing  in  the  same  public  basin, 
eating  out  of  the  same  dishes  as  the  rest  of  them.  I, 
being  a  foreigner,  had  had  my  own  basin  and  dishes. 
The  disease  is  spreading  in  Japan  because  the  people  are 
so  careless.  Everybody  in  the  house  knew,  yet  that  did 
not  seem  to  affect  their  attitude  toward  her,  nor  did 
they  demand  any  special  care.  One  day  I  looked  down 
into  the  kitchen  and  saw  her  wash  her  eyes  with  the 
medicine,  wipe  her  fingers  on  her  apron,  and  immediately 
turn  to  the  rice-bowl  in  which  the  whole  day's  portion 
was  cooking.  It  was  a  strange  situation.  To  have  at- 
tempted to  force  her  into  isolation  would  have  driven 
her  to  secrecy.  That  is  only  too  frequently  the  case  in 
that  doctor-fearing  country.  Yet,  though  the  Japanese 
attitude  is  indeed  much  less  cruel,  the  indifference 
certainly  exposes  others. 

The  mystery  grew.  "How  is  it  that  she,  a  married 
woman,  should  have  got  the  disease?"  I  asked  my  neigh- 
bor, knowing  how  universally  true  it  is  that  there  is  no 


76  JAPAN— REAL  AND   IMAGINARY 

more  faithful  creature  in  the  world  than  the  Japanese  mar- 
ried woman.  And  then  I  learned  that  she  had  once  been 
one  of  the  girls  in  the  Kobe  cages.  She  was  still  good- 
looking,  but  a  little  too  old  for  the  profession.  Yet  the 
remarkable  thing  to  me  was  that,  her  illness  notwith- 
standing, and  its  expense,  her  husband,  bound  to  her 
by  no  legal  ties,  did  not  desert  her.  They  were  kindly 
to  each  other  and  seemed  quite  happy. 

My  neighbor  had  a  quarrel  with  her  one  evening  and 
she  commenced  to  cry.  She  took  his  advice  and  went 
to  her  relatives  in  the  country  for  a  day  or  so,  to  decide 
what  her  future  course  should  be.  Shortly  afterward 
we  were  all  told  the  house  had  been  taken  over  by  a 
Japanese  nankin  firm  as  a  boarding-house  for  their  em- 
ployees, and  we  all  had  to  vacate  it. 

The  housekeeper  and  her  husband  rented  a  house 
farther  down  the  hill  and  were  anxious  to  have  us  come 
along.  But  none  of  us  would  have  remained  as  long  as 
we  did  had  it  not  been  for  the  splendid  location  of  the 
house,  its  fine  rooms  and  attractive  view.  A  year  or  so 
later  I  met  them  both  ambling  down  the  street.  They 
seemed  to  have  grown  more  stodgy,  but  were  just  as 
happy  with  each  other. 

Being  thus  precipitately  cast  out  into  the  moving 
world  again,  I  was  at  a  loss  as  to  whether  to  pry  some- 
what deeper  into  that  phase  of  Japanese  life  or  take 
advantage  of  the  opportunity  to  climb  a  step  higher  in 
the  social  scale.  Several  things  were  against  the  pros- 
pect of  getting  a  house  of  my  own — the  servant  problem 
and  the  problem  of  theft.  I  had  had  little  to  do  with 
either  the  servant  or  the  thief,  and  was  as  much  afraid 
of  the  one  as  the  other.  This  is  more  than  mere  timidity 
on  my  part.  Every  foreigner  is  forced  to  face  that  issue 
in  Japan  as  soon  as  he  becomes  a  householder.  In  the 
first  place,  there  are  plenty  of  servants  to  be  had  at  a 
very  reasonable  wage,  but  it  doesn't  stop  there.  To 


HOUSE  HUNTING  77 

get  an  unreliable  one  means  to  put  your  possessions  in 
jeopardy  and  to  submit  to  a  weekly  "squeeze."  One 
young  foreigner  found  that,  without  being  much  of  a 
drinker  himself,  he  was  constantly  running  dry  and  his 
groceries  were  always  twice  as  much  as  others  paid  for 
them.  The  other  thing  is  that  Japanese  houses  are  so 
frail,  and  without  locks;  consequently,  no  one  would 
ever  think  of  leaving  them  unguarded  for  a  moment. 
But  I  determined  to  tempt  fate  and  put  myself  under 
the  wings  of  the  Japanese  police. 

The  next  thing  was  to  find  a  house.  I  wandered  all 
over  Kobe  trying  to  find  one.  Time  was  when,  had  the 
rumor  gone  round  that  a  foreigner  wanted  to  rent  a  house, 
he  would  have  been  in  danger  of  being  scrambled  over 
by  landlords.  But  that  time  had  gone,  as  have  a  good 
many  other  things  with  the  war.  Now  I  was  the  insig- 
nificant white  man  looking  for  shelter.  I  discovered, 
first  of  all,  that  there  is  an  objection  to  renting  houses  to 
foreigners  because  they  don't  like  to  take  off  their  shoes 
before  entering,  and  are  careless  with  the  mats.  Now 
the  most  expensive  things  about  a  Japanese  house  are 
the  mats.  They  cost  from  one  dollar  to  two  dollars 
apiece,  and  there  are  from  four  to  ten  to  a  room, 
and  since  they  are  of  material  which  wears  out  quickly 
and  can't  be  washed  when  dirty,  special  care  must  be 
given  them.  Naturally,  a  landlord  has  to  reckon  that 
into  his  cost  and  rent.  Secondly,  the  business  boom  in 
Kobe  had  been  so  great,  industrialism  had  drawn  so 
many  people  to  the  port  from  other  cities  and  from  off 
the  farms,  that  there  wasn't  a  house  to  spare.  To 
make  the  situation  more  difficult,  the  cost  of  labor  and 
material  had  doubled  and  people  were  waiting  before 
attempting  to  supply  the  demand.  Rent  began  to  go 
sky  high.  Into  this  situation  I  plunged  as  a  prospective 
householder.  I  trudged  the  dusty  streets  in  the  glaring- 
hot  sun  for  days  and  days  without  success.  I  was  told 


78  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

to  look  for  ' '  To  Let ' '  signs  on  houses.  That  is  an  oblong 
piece  of  white  paper,  of  the  thin  rice-paper  kind,  stuck 
upon  the  walls  or  shutters.  They  are  never  stuck  up 
erect,  but  always  standing  on  a  corner.  The  reason  for 
this  is  that  the  oblong  thus  placed  when  cut  in  half  re- 
sembles the  Chinese  character  for  the  word  welcome,  or 
please  come  in.  And,  naturally,  every  landlord  wants 
the  prospective  tenant  to  come  in.  But  houses  were  so 
few  and  far  between  that  I  was  soon  forced  to  give  up 
my  quest.  The  next  thing  was  to  approach  the  head 
daikusan  (carpenter)  and  ask  in  my  best  Japanese, 
"Kashiya  desuka?"  ("Is  this  unfinished  house  for  rent  ?") 
In  most  cases  it  was  already  spoken  for.  And  so  the 
weary  days  dragged  on.  Even  every  plot  of  ground 
upon  which  timber  lay  in  preparation  of  a  building  was 
spoken  for.  The  best  I  could  do  was  to  become  a  boarder 
again  in  a  different  kind  of  a  boarding-house — one  run 
by  Japanese  for  foreigners  on  their  plan.  It  was  run — 
and  it  ran  everybody  into  distemper.  Insult  and  im- 
pudence were  more  generously  dispensed  than  service. 
But  I  was  compelled  to  endure  it,  for  though  I  had,  by  a 
happy  chance,  run  across  just  the  kind  of  house  I 
wanted,  it  was  still  being  built. 

But  that  was  only  the  beginning  of  my  troubles. 
Every  day  I  would  wander  out  to  see  how  the  house 
was  progressing.  First  the  roof  was  finished.  Then 
day  after  day  I  would  watch  it,  and  each  time  it  seemed 
to  me  that  only  another  length  to  the  framework  had 
been  added.  Finally  I  saw  the  floor  of  the  little  balcony 
finished.  Then  the  alcove  was  done.  At  last,  after 
being  told  from  day  to  day  that  to-morrow  or  the  day 
after  the  house  would  be  completed,  until  these  to- 
morrows had  accumulated  into  a  full  four  weeks,  the 
woodwork  was  actually  finished.  Then  came  the  matter 
of  plaster.  A  typhoon  came  on  and  blew  the  city  into 
disorder.  The  rain  had  made  the  roads  too  muddy. 


THREE   ROOMS  AND  A  KITCHEN  WITH  A  FENCE  ALL  THE  WAY  ROUND 


NOTHING  ESCAPES  EVICTION  ON  THE  HONORABLE  CLEANING-DAY 


FOR  EVERY  WRINKLE  A  CHILD — BUT  SHE  IS  LEARNING 


THE  MICROSCOPE  WOULD  REVEAL  THOUSANDS  LIKE  HER  HERE 


MY  "TEN  FOOT  SQUARE"  HOUSE  79 

The  plasterers  could  not  haul  their  brown  mud  down 
from  the  hills.  And  so  for  days  the  house  stood  there, 
complete  all  but  for  the  fact  that  the  walls  were  still 
merely  bamboo  strips  woven  across  one  another,  and 
nothing  more.  Then,  after  daily  journeys  and  quarrels 
with  the  landlord — a  Japanese  Christian — I  provoked 
him  to  forcing  the  mud  men  to  bring  the  mud,  and  the 
plasterers  to  plaster  the  house.  Thus,  fully  six  weeks 
later  than  the  day  on  which  I  had  been  promised  oc- 
cupancy, I  moved  into  my  house.  Two  things  still 
remained  unsettled.  One  was  the  plaster,  which  simply 
would  not  dry  out — I  burned  gallons  of  kerosene-oil 
trying  to  help  it  to  do  so.  The  other  was  the  matter  of 
the  rent.  Every  time  I  expressed  any  enthusiasm  about 
the  house  my  Christian  landlord  jumped  the  rent  on  me. 
First  it  was  to  be  $7.50  a  month;  then  it  became  $8; 
and  finally  $9.  Had  I  been  compelled  to  wait  much 
longer  I  feel  sure  it  would  have  become  $10.  Now  that 
is  not  the  usual  rent  for  a  Japanese  house,  and  so  I  must 
immediately  describe  it,  lest  Americans  rush  to  Japan 
under  the  illusion  that  rent  there  is  cheap.  My 
house  was  a  three-room  house  and  a  kitchen.  Speak- 
ing in  Japanese  terms,  it  was  a  twelve-and-a-half-mat 
house,  or  in  feet  and  inches  measured,  from  wall  to  wall, 
1 2  by  2 1  by  8  feet  from  floor  to  ceiling.  My  study  was 
the  pride  of  my  heart. 

Thus,  for  the  first  time  in  Japan  I  felt  settled.  I 
had  found  a  house;  I  had  found  a  servant.  I  was  alone, 
as  I  wanted  to  be  all  my  life.  I  had  found  my  little 
Hojo-an,  literally,  my  ten-foot-square  house.  The  ex- 
periences of  becoming  a  householder  in  Japan  are  too 
flitting  to  be  incorporated  in  such  a  work  as  this,  except 
as  they  were  actually  written  at  the  time.  So  I  shall 
fall  back  on  some  extracts  from  my  diary  for  the  re- 
mainder of  this  section : 

I  am  in  my  little  Hojo-an.    The  doors  are  all  shut,  the 
6 


80  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

servant  has  gone  to  town.  Not  a  sound  to  disturb  my 
peace  of  mind — and  a  certain  coziness,  immeasurably 
restful.  To-night  I  am  in  my  own  home,  happier,  with- 
out thrilling  happiness,  than  at  any  time  in  years.  It 
is  a  strange  sort  of  satisfaction  for  a  wanderer  to  find  his 
home.  I  come  and  go  as  I  please;  I  can  always  find  some 
one  here,  my  meals  prepared,  and  a  happy  retreat.  I 
thought,  just  as  I  sat  down  to  write,  Japan  had  never 
been  seen  to  be  so  lovely  as  it  then  seemed  to  me. 

Yet  it  is  nothing  to  brag  of.  It  has  no  garden  to 
speak  of,  for  in  these  days  Japan  is  economizing  in  gar- 
dens. But  from  my  little  veranda  I  can  still  view  the 
sea,  hazed  as  it  is  by  smoke  from  innumerable  factories, 
steel-works,  and  dockyards.  My  study  is  four  and  a 
half  mats  (nine  by  nine  feet)  with  karakami  (paper 
doors)  on  two  sides,  and  shoji  (paper  doors)  opening  on 
the  porch.  My  bedroom  is  just  half  a  mat  smaller, 
with  a  touch  of  modernism  in  the  way  of  a  casement 
window  taken  from  some  wrecked  foreign  house.  My 
landlord,  a  teacher  of  English  in  one  of  the  mission 
schools,  impressed  that  upon  me  as  a  special  feature. 
Don't  run  away  with  the  belief  that  he  was  urging  me 
to  rent  the  place.  No  such  humbleness  now!  Every 
time  I  made  any  over-emphatic  point  of  the  stupid 
delay  he  assured  me  I  needn't  take  it,  or  hinted  that 
three  people  had  asked  him  for  it  that  very  day. 

To  return  to  the  real  character  of  the  house — its  new- 
ness, cleanliness,  and  the  quiet.  It  is  simplicity  itself; 
no  superfluous  space  or  possessions,  and,  what  is  best,  it 
gives  me  a  place  in  the  community. 

My  servant  is  an  elderly  woman,  a  little  too  worked 
out  for  a  big  house.  For  months  I  had  been  dreaming 
of  a  little  house  in  which  I  could  be  master  without 
enslaving  others,  or  interfering  or  being  interfered  with. 
I  am  master  of  a  servant  who  says  she  will  mother 
me,  and  when  I  don't  like  the  way  she  does  a  thing  I 


MY  NEIGHBORHOOD  81 

simply  do  it  in  my  own  way  and  accomplish  by  ex- 
ample, indirectly,  that  which  I  should  fail  to  do  were  I 
to  order  it. 

I  do  not  go  the  full  length  Chomei,  the  hermit  saint  of 
Hiei-san,  did.  I  do  not  believe  in  self -torture.  I  love 
simplicity  and  quiet  to  a  degree,  but  must  have  nice 
things,  comfortable  chairs  and  a  desk,  plenty  of  books 
and  pictures.  I  love  modern  things  when  they  are  re- 
fined and  chaste;  and  I  should  be  as  unhappy  in  Cho- 
mei's  beggarliness  or  Thoreau's  scantiness  as  in  the 
narikin's  luxury.  I  sleep  on  the  mats  and  go  about  in 
my  stocking  feet. 

October  29th.  Had  a  quarrel  with  my  landlord  this 
morning,  and  it  should  have  ended  badly  but  that  I 
more  or  less  "called  his  bluff."  That  is,  I  told  him  not 
to  expect  me  to  rebuild  his  house  for  him.  Whenever  I 
suggested  that  something  had  not  been  done  properly, 
he  wanted  me  to  get  a  carpenter  to  mend  it.  But  that  is 
of  no  moment,  for  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  is  to 
quarrel  and  say  mean  things  and  feel  proud  of  it.  The 
thing  that  counts  is  that,  when  I  returned  later,  his  wife 
was  here  and  asked  if  she  could  wax  the  runners  of  my 
karakami.  I  said  my  cook  would  do  that,  but  she  in- 
sisted. She  was  on  her  knees,  about  to  commence,  when 
I  stepped  up,  and  she  put  her  arm  around  my  legs, 
explaining  that  her  husband  is  much  troubled  over  the 
incident.  How  broad  the  gap  is  between  the  men  and 
women,  and  how  far  apart  the  extremes  of  their  charac- 
ter! Either  proud  and  stiff  to  unbearableness  or  meek 
and  humble  to  humility.  It  was  indeed  touching  to 
have  this  old  woman  tell  in  such  sincere  acts  that  which 
words  with  us  could  not  have  done;  for  wasn't  it  the 
inability  to  give  proper  wording  to  our  requirements 
that  precipitated  the  little  misunderstanding? 

It  is  the  typical  Japanese  neighborhood.  An  ordinary 
dirt  road — unpaved — along  which  stand  rows  and  rows 


87  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

of  houses  each  perched  upon  a  cut-stone  terrace,  and 
surrounded  by  a  six-foot  board  fence  or  plastered  wall. 
Within  are  the  gardens.  It  is  in  the  midst  of  the  narikin 
homes,  most  of  them  unusually  well  built.  Across  the 
way,  I  learn,  is  the  home  of  a  sea-captain.  He  has  a 
most  charming  daughter,  in  every  sense  of  the  word  a 
beauty,  but  she  is  too  small,  even  for  a  Japanese.  Here 
is  the  home  of  a  millionaire  who,  two  years  ago,  was  a 
junkman.  It  is  half  foreign  and  half  Japanese.  The 
foreign  section  is  as  lacking  in  softness  or  taste  as  the 
iron  scraps  the  picking  of  which  gave  him  his  fortune. 
Two  years  ago  he  was  earning  a  yen  fifty  a  day. 

In  the  house  behind  us  my  servant  has  discovered  a 
countrywoman  of  hers  —  come  from  the  same  town  in 
Shikoku.  So  that  every  evening,  as  soon  as  she  has 
washed  the  dishes  and  set  things  straight,  she  slips  out 
and  spends  the  time  chatting  and  laughing. 

Everywhere  around  me  I  can  hear  the  sounds  of 
laughter,  the  melancholy  music  of  the  fue,  the  Japanese 
flute,  and  the  constant  tramping  of  feet.  Commercial- 
school  students  pass  by  the  hundreds  along  the  street, 
and  even  quite  a  number  of  little  foreign  children  come 
by  on  their  way  to  their  academy.  I  find  my  name  upon 
the  gate  causes  too  much  astonishment.  Never  a 
Japanese  passes  without  gazing  and  reading  the  name 
on  the  gate.  "Seiyojin"  immediately  issues  from  their 
lips.  Yes,  I  know  I  am  a  foreigner.  What  of  it?  At 
last  I  take  down  the  sign;  it  is  too  public  and  I  am  too 
near  the  road.  I  notice  that  Japanese  much  more  than 
foreigners  are  inclined  to  gaze  curiously  into  their  neigh- 
bors' houses  as  they  walk  along  the  street.  The  for- 
eigner is  too  bent  upon  his  goal  to  have  much  time  for 
idle  gazing. 

I  have  more  immediate  difficulties.  Farmers  are 
becoming  too  independent  and  won't  bring  vegetables 
round  to  your  door  as  they  used  to.  The  charcoal-man 


STANDARDIZATION  83 

treats  you  well  enough,  but  the  price  of  charcoal  is  rising 
every  week.  The  laundryman  comes,  but  comes  irregu- 
larly. But,  thank  goodness,  I  have  a  reliable  servant. 

Thus,  from  being  a  mere  casual  observer  of  the  outer 
phases  of  Japanese  life,  I  am  forced  to  give  attention  to 
details,  to  organize  my  knowledge  and  to  come  in  con- 
tact with  the  currents  of  trade  which  is  life  the  world 
over.  I  begin  to  note  certain  social  customs  and  urban 
sanctions  which  bind  and  twine  these  beings  one  to  the 
other — to  reach  out  to  the  length  and  breadth  of  all  the 
Empire. 

For,  though  I  have  a  servant,  still  a  man  must  go  shop- 
ping if  he  is  to  get  any  satisfaction  for  his  money.  One 
often  hears  that  real  insight  into  home  life  in  Japan  is 
denied  the  foreigner,  and  that  is,  socially  speaking,  true. 
But  still  it  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  see  into  the 
homes  of  the  tradespeople  and  the  working-class,  for 
from  the  interior  to  the  street  there  is  little  to  obstruct 
the  observation  of  him  who  will.  Fact  is,  almost  all  the 
home  life  is  lived  in  the  front  of  the  building,  which  is  the 
shop,  and  the  pouring  out  upon  the  street  is  like  to  that 
of  their  wares.  Street  selling  is  still  common  in  Japan, 
largely  on  account  of  the  openness  of  Japanese  houses 
and  the  lack  of  locks  strong  enough  to  keep  out  intruders. 
Consequently  women  are  practically  confined  to  their 
homes.  But  it  is  different  with  the  tradespeople.  In 
their  shops  and  stores  the  whole  household  is  grouped 
about  the  brazier,  and  whatever  of  home  life  there  is, 
except  the  sleeping  and  eating,  may  be  seen  from  the 
street. 

I  wandered  about  all  over  town  one  day,  trying  to  find 
a  locksmith  to  make  a  key  for  a  chest  of  drawers.  But 
though  I  inquired  in  half  a  dozen  hardware  stores  and 
as  many  other  places,  no  one  would  undertake  the 
job.  Exasperated  as  I  was,  I  saw  that  this  indicates 
as  much  the  keylessness  and  locklessness  of  Japan  as  it 


84  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

does  its  business  indolence.  No  mechanic  or  locksmith 
could  earn  a  living  in  a  country  where  bolts  and  bars  are 
a  negligible  quantity.  Cheap  labor  means  servants  to 
watch  the  houses — then  why  have  locks?  The  door  to 
one  hardware  shop  swung  outward,  and  the  lock,  instead 
of  being  an  example  of  the  shopkeeper's  artisanship,  was 
placed  on  backward  and  had  to  be  drawn  in  by  the 
handle  when  closing,  and  simply  pushed  out  when  open- 
ing. No  one  would  bother  with  me  in  my  seeking.  I 
had  to  secure  the  help  of  a  friend  before  I  found  a  willing 
smith.  He  offered  to  fit  a  key  for  fifteen  sen,  but  wanted 
two  days  in  which  to  finish  it.  He  was  an  honest  man,  but 
his  key  turned  like  a  piece  of  tin  the  first  time  I  inserted 
it  in  the  lock. 

My  servant  told  me  that  she  constantly  whispered  to 
grocery  boys  and  dealers  the  fact  that  my  doors  were  well 
bolted  from  within.  She  thought  it  good  advertisement 
and  would  tend  to  keep  thieves  away  from  the  place. 

I  wanted  to  buy  some  cushions  for  my  prospective 
Japanese  guests  to  sit  upon,  but  discovered  that  I  would 
have  to  buy  a  complete  set  of  four  or  six,  all  of  the  same 
pattern.  I  could  not  find  a  place  willing  to  sell  me  one 
alone. 

I  wanted  to  buy  glass  doors  for  my  veranda,  but  found 
that  they  were  made  only  according  to  given  size.  I 
had  the  man  give  me  an  estimate  of  their  cost,  but 
because  I  didn't  place  the  order  forthwith  he  refused  to 
make  them  for  me  a  couple  of  days  later. 

I  went  to  buy  a  desk.  It  was  delivered.  I  saw  that 
the  green-felt  top  had  not  been  finished  properly,  the 
edges  were  not  tucked  in  neatly.  I  asked  the  man  to 
touch  it  up,  but  he  said  he  couldn't.  I  pointed  out  that 
it  was  but  the  matter  of  a  moment,  that  unless  the  ends 
were  done  properly  I  should  not  take  the  desk.  He  pre- 
ferred to  take  it  back  with  him  rather  than  satisfy  me. 

I  discovered  that  the  electric  lighting  was  all  en  bloc. 


OSOJI,  OR  HONORABLE  CLEANING  85 

You  paid  a  certain  nominal  sum  for  lighting  and  could 
burn  it  from  the  time  it  was  turned  on  in  the  afternoon* 
until  it  was  turned  off  again  in  the  morning.  But  even 
on  early  dark  days  you  had  to  wait  for  the  lights  to  be 
turned  on.  I  asked  for  a  meter,  but  found  that  the 
conditions  did  not  suit  my  kind  of  house.  I  had  to  sub- 
mit to  the  standardization  to  which  Japan  bows  so 
politely. 

Whatever  I  wanted,  as  a  householder,  I  could  get,  but 
it  had  to  be  cut  and  dried  according  to  the  limited  pat- 
terns and  designs  of  the  community. 

I  discovered,  too,  that  twice  a  year  every  house  in 
Japan  must  turn  itself  inside  out  and  prove  to  the  world 
that  it  is  clean.  Then  the  effects  are  set  out  upon  the 
road,  the  mats  are  raised  and  pounded,  and  all  dishes 
must  be  washed  in  hot  water.  This  rule  holds  good  for 
business  houses  as  well  as  private.  The  first  time  I 
passed  down  the  main  business  street  of  Kobe — Moto- 
machi — I  thought  a  fire  had  broken  out;  that  if  it 
hadn't,  it  was  anticipated.  But  I  could  not  account  for 
the  thick  clouds' of  dust,  the  sound  of  mat-beating,  the 
cloths  tied  across  men's  and  women's  mouths  and  noses. 
The  street  was  littered,  so  that  only  a  narrow  haphazard 
pathway  remained  open,  and  even  this  was  littered  with 
debris.  Passers-by  held  their  handkerchiefs  before  their 
noses.  Each  store  had  its  effects  fenced  in  by  the 
wooden  shutters  used  to  lock  up  at  night.  Yet  now  no 
one  seemed  to  be  watching  lest  thieves  slip  away  with 
valuables. 

It  was  the  plague  -  preventing  campaign  conducted 
twice  a  year.  To  see  the  piles  of  filth  was  enough  to 
make  you  marvel  any  one's  escape  from  plague. 

But  the  cleaning  was  done  thoroughly.  Policemen 
went  about  inspecting  houses,  and  section  by  section 
the  city  was  renovated — not  excluding  the  wealthier 
residential  districts. 


86  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Realizing  that  not  to  know  what  the  standards  are 
was  to  be  cheated  at  every  turn,  I  gave  up  shopping 
myself  and  turned  it  all  over  to  my  servant,  thus  pro- 
moting her  to  the  status  of  housekeeper.  Every  day 
she  would  render  account  of  her  purchases,  and  I  noticed 
that  invariably  she  announced  the  sum  of  money  first 
and  then  the  article  she  had  bought.  But  however  much 
it  seemed  to  me  a  topsy-turvy  affair,  I  realized  that  if  I 
wanted  any  peace  at  all  it  was  better  to  let  her  look 
after  that  end  herself.  I  didn't  dare  question  a  thing 
thereafter.  Once  I  did,  and  nearly  lost  her,  for  she 
thought  I  was  questioning  her  honesty.  She  shed  tears. 
Whether  she  was  really  hurt  by  the  insinuation  or 
whether  she  was  caught  I  was  never  able  to  determine, 
though  she  remained  with  me  as  long  as  I  kept  house. 
But  I  surrendered.  After  that  I  saw  that  I  would  gain 
nothing  by  meddling,  and  kept  my  hands  off.  Rather, 
I  turned  to  observing  the  home  life  about  me. 

My  servant's  friends  above  left  the  house.  They  had 
purchased  a  home  of  their  own.  It  was  an  old  house, 
this,  and  stood  vacant  for  more  than  a  month.  Then 
came  a  new  neighbor  to  gladden  my  lonely  days.  He 
spoke  English,  and  that  well,  too.  The  day  after  he 
moved  in  he  came  round  to  my  front  door,  introduced 
himself  to  me,  and  expressed  himself  most  politely. 
We  were  to  visit  each  other,  he  said.  One  evening  he 
called  across  to  me,  at  about  eight  o'clock :  ' '  May  I  come 
over?  I  am  a  little  drunk  to-night,  but  ..."  Of 
course,  I  urged  him  to  come.  He  came.  His  long,  oval 
face  and  straight  nose  indicated  his  Yamato  origin.  He 
spoke  intelligently,  sake  notwithstanding.  A  slightly 
shamed  laugh,  together  with  the  odor  of  the  brew,  con- 
firmed his  announcement.  When  I  inquired  if  he  would 
have  some  tea,  he  asked  if  he  could  have  coffee  instead. 
When  I  had  the  coffee  served  and  set  out  to  help  him  to 
it,  he  insisted  he  could  help  himself — and  he  did.  Three 


A  THREE  O'CLOCK  HUSBAND  87 

times  he  filled  his  cup,  and  every  time  it  was  drained 
quickly,  and  he  asked  for  more,  reaching  to  the  pot. 
There  was  but  a  little  left;  he  drained  it,  refusing  to 
permit  me  to  order  more,  with  the  explanatory  remark: 
"I  never  leave  anything.  Gentlemen  always  say  I 
never  leave  anything."  I  suggested  that  it  must  be 
Japanese  custom.  "No,  it's  my  way.  I  never  leave 
anything." 

Poor  devil.  Poverty.  It  weighed  upon  him.  "All 
English  and  American  peoples  are  rich.  You,  too,  are 
rich.  Yes,  you  are  rich.  Don't  tell  lies.  Your  parents 
are  rich." 

"Did  you  see  no  poverty  in  America  while  you  were 
there?"  I  asked. 

"No,  no  poor  people.  All  are  rich.  Japan,  every- 
body poor.  People  all  say  and  government  say,  Japan 
is  great  country.  Not  so  great,  I  think.  Not  so  great." 

Then  he  commenced  urging  me  to  come  over  next 
Sunday  and  insisted  on  knowing  then  and  there  what 
I  wanted  him  to  serve  me  with.  He  was  not  at  all 
satisfied  with  my  polite  objection,  but  insisted  four  or 
five  times,  and  again  just  before  leaving. 

He  told  me  who  his  roomers  were.  One  man  worked 
for  Suzuki  &  Co.,  another  for  Sumitomo,  and  so  on.  The 
clan  instinct  is  still  alive  in  them.  They  cling  to  their 
bosses  just  as  they  did  to  their  lords. 

He  had  a  tiny  little  jaundiced-looking  wife,  with  two 
babies.  From  one  end  of  the  day  to  the  other,  one  or 
both  of  these  two  infants  rent  the  air  with  their  wailing. 
The  poor  little  person  must  have  been  made  of  plain 
clay  to  have  held  together  under  that  nervous  strain. 

One  evening  my  servant  came  in  to  my  study,  whis- 
pering that  the  wife  was  gone,  and  she  didn't  know  where 
to.  Then  she  said  the  husband  was  drunk  and  had 
beaten  his  wife;  that  she  had  slipped  out  upon  the  road 
with  the  youngest,  and  could  not  be  found.  Seeing  that 


88  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

my  sympathy  was  alive,  my  servant  disappeared.  In  a, 
moment  she  was  back  again  with  the  neighbor,  and  came 
in  announcing  that  she  had  followed  my  suggestion  and 
had  brought  the  woman  into  the  house,  and  would  I 
object  to  her  remaining  there  till  he  sobered  down?  It 
was  near  twelve  o'clock  before  she  dared  to  go  home 
again. 

One  night  I  observed  an  incident  in  the  home  life  of 
Japan  quite  illuminating.  On  the  terrace  just  below 
the  house  in  which  I  lived  was  another  private  house.  A 
wooden  gateway  stood  at  the  entrance  to  the  yard.  Its 
door  was  made  of  thin,  wide  strips.  A  man  could  easily 
circumvent  it  by  climbing  over  the  shrubbed  parapet  to 
the  left. 

Scene  i. — Mr.  Nippon  came  home  at  two  or  three  in 
the  morning.  He  must  have  been  having  a  good  time 
with  the  geisha.  He  found  the  door  locked,  not  with  a 
patent  key,  but  with  a  frail  little  wooden  bolt.  He 
commenced  pounding  on  this  rattly  door  and  calling 
across  the  yard  and  the  heavens  for  some  delicate 
sleeper  to  waken  and  open  the  gate  for  him.  He  beat 
away  for  fifteen  minutes,  all  in  vain.  At  last,  his  pa- 
tience exhausted,  his  temper  matured  into  indignation 
and  fevered  into  violent  pounding.  His  shoulder  finally 
pressed  the  door  and  the  bolt  gave  way.  He  was  in  the 
yard. 

Scene  2. — With  sweeping  strides,  in  imitation  of  the 
samurai,  he  placed  the  yard  behind  him  and  con- 
fronted the  door  of  the  house — likewise  bolted.  He 
rattled  it  and  his  tongue  vehemently.  He  seemed 
angry  enough  to  wreck  the  house.  At  last  a  sleepy  in- 
mate woke  to  the  realization  of  the  coming  of  her  lord 
and  answered  his  impetuous  alarm.  Whereupon  he 
began  to  belabor  her  with  words  for  her  neglect. 

So  does  the  three-o'clock  husband  of  Japan  arrive. 
He  doesn't  sneak  in  with  padded  feet  and  fumble  his 


CUSTOM  AND  CRUELTY  89 

key  to  a  most  unsteady  keyhole,  but  he  wakes  the  neigh- 
borhood so  that  all  might  bear  witness  to  his  indepen- 
dence and  his  overlordship.  Far  from  being  ashamed,  he 
scolds  his  wife,  orders  the  outer  door  to  be  immediately 
repaired  with  hammer  and  nails,  regardless  of  his 
neighbors'  peace  and  comfort. 

And  he  could  just  as  easily  have  climbed  over  the 
hedge  and  none  of  us  would  have  been  any  the  wiser. 
That  Japanese  have  no  capacity  for  getting  round  a 
situation  is  quite  clear.  Lovers  here  do  not  know  how 
to  outwit  their  irate  parents  and  make  no  attempt  to — 
but  commit  suicide  together  when  opposed.  Cornered, 
very  few  Japanese  will  work  their  way  out  of  a  situation. 

The  Japanese  man  has  been  made  effeminate  by  the 
attention  he  has  always  received  from  his  women.  No 
creature  can  retain  his  strength  and  dignity  while  being 
waited  upon  so  carefully.  The  Japanese  man  occupies 
almost  the  same  place  in  his  society  as  does  our  woman 
in  ours.  We  have  made  an  outcry  against  the  over- 
indulgence of  our  women  and  its  deteriorating  effect 
upon  the  race.  The  same  can  be  said  of  the  Japanese 
men. 

The  head  of  the  household  exercises  all  the  authority 
so  smugly  vested  in  him.  He  rules  without  the  bluster 
which  so  degrades  the  German  woman,  which  extin- 
guishes the  soul  of  the  near-eastern  woman,  which  so 
arouses  the  indignation  of  the  British  woman,  and  puts 
the  Frenchwoman  in  the  way  of  using  mere  sex  as  her 
scepter.  The  Japanese  woman  is  neither  non-existent 
nor  over-evident.  She  is  not  noticed  nor  despised. 
How  she  escapes  being  lost  is  an  Oriental  puzzle. 

I  have  seen  cases  which  enraged  me.  A  Japanese 
friend  of  mine,  with  years  of  residence  abroad  and  a  wife 
born  in  America,  has,  when  back  in  his  own  country, 
reverted  to  the  Oriental  type.  While  guests  were  in  the 
room  she  was  absent.  Though  she  was  big  with  child, 


90  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

she  stooped  to  put  her  little  husband's  tabi  on  his  little 
feet.  He,  lordling,  sat  as  though  she  were  a  dog  licking 
his  boots.  In  her  pregnant  state,  she  nevertheless 
struggled  away  to  make  the  "socks"  secure,  and  disap- 
peared without  direct  thanks.  His  cigarettes  were 
wrapped  for  him  in  the  cloth  which  every  man  carries 
with  him,  without  his  having  asked  for  them.  His 
cigarettes  were  likewise  lighted  for  him.  He  never  asked 
for  anything.  His  wants  were  always  anticipated — 
and  all  silently.  He  didn't  thank  her,  but  did  remark 
to  me  (sometimes  she  did  overhear)  about  the  goodness 
of  the  Japanese  woman. 

Yet  of  all  I  met  he  was  the  most  faithful,  with  a  fine 
mind,  broad  views  of  life  and  social  aspirations.  He 
couldn't  help  this.  Individually  he  was  not  to  blame. 
Man  will  condemn  a  thing  most  vigorously  until  it  be- 
comes a  custom,  then,  no  matter  how  wrong,  he  will 
justify  it  and  live  up  to  every  particle  with  pride. 

Many  a  young  man  goes  to  ruin  because,  when  his 
father  dies,  no  matter  how  young,  he  is  the  master,  and 
his  mother  must  abide  by  his  wishes  patiently. 

Yet  almost  the  first  thing  I  have  been  asked  by  most 
Japanese  is  whether  I  have  parents  living,  where  they 
are,  and  why  not  bring  them  over  with  me  to  Japan. 
Art  Smith  saw  this  and  was  clever  enough  to  bring  along 
his  mother  on  his  second  visit.  This  was  hailed  with 
delight,  and  though,  doubtless,  he  loved  his  mother,  still, 
it  was  an  excellent  bit  of  advertisement,  for  the  papers 
were  full  of  it. 

When  both  parents  are  alive,  Japanese  men  are  as 
humble  as  their  wives  are  obedient  to  them.  My 
friend's  father  and  mother  came  to  visit  him.  Though 
he  had  been  married  for  five  years,  he  had  no  child. 
At  last  the  father  expressed  his  dissatisfaction — and  a 
child  came  in  due  course. 

When  I  entered  the  house,  his  parents  were  sitting 


THE  AFFECTIONS  91 

quietly,  without  austerity  and  without  restraint,  neither 
domineering  nor  over-familiar,  occupying  the  places 
formerly  the  seats  of  my  friend  and  his  wife.  Our 
placing  was  obviously  formal.  The  father  sat  with  his 
back  to  the  place  of  honor.  Opposite  to  him  was  his 
quiet  wife,  her  face  a  well  of  Japanese  reserve.  And  yet 
it  is  really  not  reserve.  It  is  deep  and  reaches  back  into 
the  very  heart  and  soul  and  beginning  of  these  people. 
It  bears  no  resemblance  to  restraint,  for  there  is  no 
personal  conflict.  Consequently,  instead  of  curbing  and 
crushing  the  individuality ,  it  seems  to  expand,  to  enlarge, 
and  to  merge  with  her  race.  She  is  not  so  much  Kazuko 
herself,  nor  yet  Mrs.  Fujimoto;  she  is  Mrs.  Japan.  It 
is  this  way.  Our  women  and  men  wrench  themselves 
out  of  the  mass.  They  develop  individual  traits  and 
characteristics.  Many  of  them  become  great  through 
that  development.  But  the  vast  majority  of  Japanese 
sink  into  the  mass.  There  the  parents  sat,  she  humbly 
staring  before  her,  he  reading  his  newspaper;  their  son 
chatting  with  me. 

Foreigners  seldom  get  a  chance  to  look  into  the  home 
life  of  the  Japanese  simply  because  in  the  majority  of 
cases  there  is  no  such  thing.  Even  were  you  to  speak 
the  language  fluently,  what  would  most  women  talk 
about?  They  are  not  trained  for  social  lives,  and  the 
reason  is  as  much  that  they  are  too  bashful  as  that  the 
Japanese  is  wilfully  reserved.  I  have  been  in  the  homes 
of  a  few  well-to-do  Japanese,  and  in  each  case  the 
women  would  be  introduced,  but  would  retire  soon 
after.  The  homes  are  then  quiet.  Among  the  educated 
and  the  converted,  the  woman  does  come  forward  a 
little,  but  generally  finds  more  pleasure  in  serving 
delicacies  than  entering  the  conversation. 

This  is  due  to  the  absence  of  natural  selection  in  the 
matter  of  mating.  Were  a  young  man  free  to  choose,  he 
would  decide  upon  one  who  would  not  only  be  wife  and 


92  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

mother,  but  also  companion.  As  it  is,  only  rarely  are 
the  dull  and  stupid  eliminated.  The  parents  are  more 
concerned  about  having  meek  and  obedient  daughters-in- 
law  whom  they  can  manage  than  that  their  sons  should 
have  pleasant  companions. 

My  friend  had  a  love-affair  to  handle  one  evening.  A 
young  man  of  twenty  (who  looked  like  a  boy  of  fifteen) 
was  living  with  him  as  pupil  and  servant.  His  home  was 
near  Nagasaki.  My  friend  took  up  every  detail  of  the 
boy's  affair  much  as  he  would  have  handled  a  proposed 
amalgamation  of  two  business  firms.  He  advised  him 
to  wait  four  or  five  years  longer,  and  his  advice  was 
accepted.  The  solemnity  with  which  the  affair  was  con- 
ducted was  thrilling.  I  had  to  wait  an  hour  on  the  floor 
below  while  the  proceedings  were  going  on.  A  hush 
hung  over  the  household.  And  when  my  friend  ap- 
peared, it  was  like  the  arrival  of  a  minister  of  state 
after  an  all-night  session. 

As  rigorously  as  such  matters  are  handled,  still  the 
Japanese  household  is  by  no  means  efficiently  con- 
ducted. The  woman  has  work  to  do  from  morning  till 
night.  She  must  rise  early,  though  she  has  a  servant— 
and  most  of  them  have — and  attend  to  all  the  details 
in  the  same  way  as  does  the  mother  of  the  West.  There 
are  the  meals  to  be  prepared  and  the  children  to  be  sent 
to  school;  there  is  the  rice  to  be  washed  in  an  ordinary 
bucket,  and  there  are  the  clothes  to  be  washed  and  plas- 
tered upon  wooden  boards  instead  of  ironing.  There 
is  only  one  essential  in  which  the  life  of  the  Japanese 
woman  differs  from  the  life  of  the  working  housewife 
elsewhere  in  the  world — and  that  is  that  there  is  no 
cradle  to  rock.  The  mother  is  herself  the  cradle,  or 
else  she  ties  the  numerous  babies  on  the  backs  of  the 
servant,  nurse,  or  older  children  and  goes  about  her 
duties. 

One  of  my  last  experiences  before  graduating  into  the 


I  ENTERTAIN  93 

world  at  large  was  entertaining.  I  had  by  this  time 
become  not  only  an  efficient  householder,  running  up 
against  servant  problems,  city  graft,  and  inefficiency, 
landlord  problems,  and  all  the  intricate  irritations  of 
home  life  in  Japan,  but  I  had  become  an  official.  I  was 
accepted  as  instructor  of  English  in  one  of  the  Imperial 
Japanese  government  schools,  and  was  expected,  among 
other  tasks,  to  entertain  the  students  on  occasion.  Thus 
I  was  compelled  to  initiate  many  a  youth  and  grown- 
up into  the  intricacies  of  sitting  at  a  table  and  using 
knives  and  forks.  Once  a  Japanese  brought  some  of 
his  friends  along,  and  as  soon  as  he  arrived  he  took 
a  pad  of  paper  from  my  desk  and  wrote,  "You  go  get 
some  ice-cream." 

But  the  lens  was  slowly  being  adjusted  for  more 
detailed  observation,  and  though  I  had  gathered  much 
general  information  I  had  not  till  then  felt  that  I  under- 
stood the  relation  of  one  fact  to  the  other,  for  it  is  only 
after  the  family  is  known  that  the  mass  of  human  beings 
with  whom  one  rubs  shoulders  on  the  street  begins  to 
seem  rational  and  interesting. 


' 


HOW  STRIKINGLY  SIMILAR  THEIR  FACIAL  EXPRESSIONS 


THE  WHITE-CLOTHED  POLICEMAN  EARNS  LITTLE  MONEY  BUT  LOTS  OF  RESPECT 


HORN    IN    JAPAN 


WSSATIsKIKI)  HfT  ClKIOl'S: 
.s<  i  \\  AS  I 


THE  CHILD  KNOWETH  ITS  FATHER 
FROM  ITS  MOTHER 


Part    Two 
THE    COMMUNAL    PHASE 


VI 

MEN,  WOMEN    AND    CHILDREN 

.HE  plastic  nature  of  the  Oriental  has  given 
the  Japanese  an  ancient  and  long-enduring 
civilization.  This  yielding  persistence  is  evi- 
dent in  many  forms  of  his  social  life.  With 
all  the  rigid  conventions  of  the  Japanese,  he 
enjoys  a  freedom  of  individual  action  which 
might  well  be  the  envy  of  his  Occidental  brothers. 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  his  inner  life  is  shut  off  to  the 
wandering  stranger,  and  even  to  the  one  who  has  made  the 
land  his  permanent  home,  there  are  phases  of  his  life  so 
communal  as  to  be  an  open  book  to  him  who  will  but  stop 
to  read.  Japanese  do  things  in  public  for  which  we  would 
ostracize  a  man  or  send  him  to  the  lockup.  From  their 
communal  spirit  which  tolerates  bathing  in  public  to- 
gether they  go  to  the  other  extreme  of  coming  out  on 
their  balconies  and  clearing  their  throats  at  five  o'clock  in 
the  morning  and  expectorating  into  the  open  gutters  be- 
low. They  will  hold  their  fans  before  their  mouths  when 
talking  or  yawning,  as  do  we,  but  will  cough  and  sneeze 
in  your  face  on  the  street-cars.  And  yet,  among  the 
refined,  observance  of  custom  is  pathetically  beautiful. 
They  come  to  celebrate  the  arrival  of  the  cherry  blossoms 
by  bringing  with  them  their  geisha  and  their  children; 
they  move  in  perfect  hordes;  they  go  to  the  station  in 
masses  to  see  off  some  friend  or  relative  and  crowd  the 
platforms,  bowing  and  bowing  and  bowing  again  as 
though  there  weren't  a  thousand  strangers  passing  before 


98  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

them ;  they  dress,  undress,  eat,  sleep,  and  drink  whisky 
by  the  tumblerful  on  the  trains  —  yet  their  inner  lives 
are  as  secret  to  one  another  as  they  seem  to  be  to  the 
foreigner.  It  is  as  though  from  behind  the  scenes — in 
which  many  people  are  more  interested  than  in  the  play 
itself — the  actors  had  come,  forgetting,  in  a  moment  of 
absent-mindedness,  to  put  on  their  make-up,  or  had  come 
upon  the  street,  forgetting  to  take  it  off. 

The  image  here  alluded  to  is  better  understood  in 
another  way.  Japan  best  symbolizes  itself  on  its  wet 
days.  A  country  is  interesting  and  romantic  or  not 
according  to  the  impression  it  makes  on  rainy  days.  It 
is  easy  enough  to  love  it  when  the  sun  is  bright  and 
clear,  or  attractive  and  restful  at  twilight.  But  night- 
time and  rainy  days  are  the  great  test.  How  the  beating 
of  the  rain  flays  the  lazy  earth  to  activity  in  Switzer- 
land, in  the  Adirondacks  in  New  York,  and  in  countries 
where  rain  is  spring's  awakener!  Not  so  in  the  East. 
In  Japan  there  seems  no  connection  between  rain  and 
birth  and  growth — like  the  primitive  man  who  saw  no 
connection  between  a  momentary  impulse  and  the  birth 
of  a  child.  In  Japan  when  it  rains,  it  pours.  Every- 
thing becomes  sloppy,  the  streets  deep  with  mud.  But 
two  things  make  Japan  on  rainy  days  as  pretty  and 
attractive  as  it  has  been  pictured — the  rickshaw  and  the 
karakasa  (umbrella) .  The  long  streets  are  less  crowded ; 
rickshaws  are  hard  to  get;  men  and  women  pass  with 
skirts  drawn  up  to  their  knees,  babies  hang  on  under  the 
large  round  karakasa.  The  slush  requires  two,  three,  or 
four-inch  wooden  clogs  to  keep  feet  clear  of  mud.  Some 
coolies  wear  straw  capes,  and  horses  are  sometimes 
covered  as  with  straw  armor.  Yet  in  spite  of  mud  and 
downpour,  the  people  wade  on  as  though  paved  streets 
were  undignified  and  bare  legs  quite  modest. 

In  the  great  umbrella  one  sees  the  structure  and  the 
make-up  of  Japan  symbolized.  It  is  big  enough  to 


NO  RACE  SUICIDE  99 

protect  the  entire  family — and  though  there  are  always 
exceptions  to  every  rule — in  Japan  the  family  is  thought 
of,  whether  it  is  actually  served  or  not  in  the  thing  made. 

There  is  no  race  suicide  as  yet  in  Japan.  Nor  have 
mothers  and  fathers  reached  that  stage  of  modesty 
where  they  leave  the  product  of  their  union  at  home  and 
out  of  sight.  It  seems  to  me  that  our  western  civiliza- 
tion, with  its  shyness  and  over-emphasis  of  certain 
conceptions  of  morality,  has  brought  about  race  suicide 
and  has  made  motherhood  ashamed  of  itself.  Here  in 
Japan,  where  the  increase  in  population  is  about  eight 
hundred  thousand  every  year,  there  is  none  of  that  sen- 
sitiveness. What  is  more  interesting  is  to  see  how 
evenly  the  burdens  of  rearing  offspring  are  shared. 
Men  and  boys  are  seen  carrying  the  young  upon  their 
backs  almost  as  often  as  women,  and  it  would  seem  that 
a  father  who  is  true  to  his  duty  to  his  children  is  not 
regarded  as  effeminate.  Nor  is  it  done  merely  as  a  duty. 
The  bearer,  whether  mother,  father,  sister,  or  brother, 
is  often  seen  chatting  to  the  tiny  mite  upon  his  or  her 
back,  playing  with  and  amusing  the  burden.  This  is 
another  phase  of  the  communal  character  of  these  people. 
No  one  seems  to  mind  the  presence  in  public  places  of 
all  these  children  and  their  nurses,  however  much  they 
may  interfere  with  the  traffic. 

The  men  on  the  street  are  not  over-attractive.  They 
are  without  bearing,  without  prepossession.  They  lack 
in  vital  personality.  Here  and  there  is  an  impressive 
figure.  A  tall,  dark-faced  individual  in  western  clothing, 
with  a  black  cape  and  soft  hat,  makes  his  way  along 
the  street.  The  cape  is  the  general  male  costume  in 
Japan.  Doubtless  this  individual  is  an  actor;  perhaps 
a  poet.  So  say  his  flowing  black  hair  and  artist  tie. 
But  one  cannot  tell  by  the  variety  of  costume  that  there 
is  really  a  variety  of  avocations.  In  general,  the  men's 
dress  is  not  over-neat.  Drawers  protrude  from  under 


ioo  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

the  skirts  of  the  kimonos,  dirty,  wrinkled  because  gen- 
erally far  too  long  for  the  wearer,  not  always  clean; 
shirts  and  sleeves  show  from  under  the  upper  part  of 
the  kimono,  seldom  tidy,  seldom  really  clean.  The 
Japanese  dress  all  awry.  I  soon  ceased  contemplating 
how  gloriously  beautiful  it  must  have  been  in  ancient 
Rome.  It  seemed  that  the  close-cut  western  suit  is 
best  for  the  average  man  too  busy  and  too  indifferent  to 
attend  to  his  appearance.  When  the  Japanese  dons 
his  full-dress  costume,  he  is  fine  to  look  at — but  on  the 
street  every  day — he  is  more  of  a  clown  than  a  handsome 
hero.  And  when  he  begins  to  dress  on  the  train  call 
the  policeman — to  learn  that  it  is  not  against  the  law  in 
Japan  to  expose  one's  body. 

In  winter  the  men  put  on  furs  and  mufflers,  wind 
them  round  about  their  heads  in  such  ways  as  would 
create  riotous  amusement  if  a  western  woman  tried  it. 

The  Japanese  man  swaggers  a  little  too  much  upon  the 
public  highways  to  be  attractive.  He  does  not  consider 
it  effeminate  to  place  his  arm  round  his  male  friend's 
waist  or  hold  his  hands  as  they  proceed  together.  He 
sings  aloud  when  the  spirit  moves  him.  But  he  does 
not  chew  tobacco  nor  stand  upon  the  street  -  corners 
flirting  with  the  girls.  I  have  watched  them  by  the 
hour  passing  before  me  in  an  incessant  stream  of  strag- 
glers seemingly  bound  for  nowhere  in  particular.  In 
summer  the  color  scheme  is  bright  and  cheerful;  in 
winter,  dull  and  somber.  But  whether  summer  or 
winter,  the  faces  of  the  men  are  always  the  same — re- 
served, yet  free  and  content,  and  self-conscious. 

The  book-stores  are  crowded — but  all  other  shops 
seem  everlastingly  to  be  waiting  for  a  customer.  Men 
do  most  of  the  selling,  but  not  much  of  the  shopping. 
They  are  not  the  package-bearers.  Their  hands  are 
too  delicate,  often  held  as  daintily  as  our  women  hold 
theirs.  In  winter  their  hands  are  drawn  back  through 


THE  MOVING  THRONG  101 

the  broad  sleeves  and  tucked  away  into  the  bosom  of 
their  kimonos  for  warmth. 

Once  an  army  officer  bridegroom  stepped  out  of  a 
motor-car  in  all  his  official  regalia;  his  dainty  bride 
followed  in  pursuit  across  the  street.  They  were 
not  rushing  away  from  matrimonial  celebrants.  They 
were  not  even  dressed  for  the  ceremony.  They  were 
bound  for  the  photographer's,  where,  for  the  benefit  of 
the  generations  to  come,  they  were  to  have  themselves 
made  into  ancestors  visible  in  perpetuity. 

Or  the  crowded  street  is  suddenly  orderlied.  The 
mass  of  moving  men  becomes  set,  eager,  attentive,  like 
the  '  'walking-stick ' '  worm  when  facing  danger.  The  way 
opens  to  a  batch  of  soldiers,  in  their  cheap  brown  uni- 
forms, tired-looking,  uninterested.  A  few  months  ago 
they  were  young  conscripts,  perhaps,  being  sent  off  to 
the  station  with  bamboo  poles  floating  thin  strips  of 
paper.  Then  they  had  been  up  all  night  celebrating 
their  last  few  hours  of  freedom.  Now  they  are  short  and 
quick — and  not  a  little  weary-looking. 

The  motor-cars  whizz  by  in  countable  numbers,  nankin 
with  geisha  on  their  way  to  the  tea-houses  for  an  evening 
spree.  The  more  exclusive,  closed  rickshaw  with  its  soli- 
tary passenger  is  likewise  bent  on  business  or  on  pleasure. 

Again,  the  street  may  be  crowded  with  interminable 
wagonettes,  pigeon-cages,  improvised  trees,  and  white- 
wood  food  palanquins  or  fancy  tub-coffin  containers. 
A  funeral. 

It  is  a  strange  throng.  Nothing  in  one's  own  ex- 
perience can  translate  it.  It  seems  inexplicable.  But 
the  foreigner  need  not  really  find  it  so.  The  way  is 
always  open  for  the  curious.  He  can  generally  count 
on  the  Japanese  being  as  eager  to  speak  to  him  as  he  is 
to  find  out — as  long  as  he  keeps  to  English.  And  so 
any  question  rightly  placed  puts  you  instantly  in  con- 
tact with  the  whole  current  of  life.  You  now  have  a 


102  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

"free"  guide  who  seldom  leads  you  anywhere.  He  will, 
however,  speak  with  you  interminably. 

I  had  entered  into  conversation  with  a  young  man  on 
the  train,  one  night,  on  my  way  down  from  Tokyo. 
He  had  as  companion  a  charming  little  girl,  and  seemed 
pleased  that  I  admired  her.  A  more  dainty  little  person 
would  be  hard  to  find  in  Japan.  She  was  his  sister. 
All  night  long  she  used  him  as  a  pillow  or  he  in  turn  put 
his  head  in  her  lap.  Her  postures  were  kittenish  in  the 
extreme — but  his  were  no  less  gentle.  He  was  a  student 
at  the  Imperial  University  in  Kyoto,  whither  he  was 
bound  after  a  visit  to  his  parents.  As  is  the  Japanese 
custom,  we  exchanged  cards.  A  few  days  afterward  I 
received  a  letter  from  him,  inviting  me  to  visit  them  in 
Kyoto.  Such  is  the  lovely  nature  of  the  Japanese. 
In  that  casual  way  I  saw  into  the  life  of  the  people  at  a 
glance.  The  several  points  in  his  letter  were  more  than 
personal;  they  were  ethical,  national,  and  emotional. 
There  was  the  reference  to  flowers  and  to  parents,  and 
all  that  host  of  sentiments  and  interests  which  is 
Japan. 

It  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  for  a  white  man  to 
come  in  contact  with  the  Japanese.  You  can  put  your 
hand  on  the  Japanese  heart.  It  is  rarely  you  meet  so 
loving  a  people,  a  people  glad  to  receive  you.  What 
though,  like  most  hasty  marriages,  there  frequently  is 
serious  disappointment!  At  least  you  have  not  wasted 
a  lifetime  in  trying  to  make  acquaintance. 

There  is  an  absence  of  cement  in  every  Japanese  rela- 
tionship, which  goes  to  explain  much  that  mystifies  the 
foreigner.  That  is  why  foreign  traders  have  had  so 
much  difficulty  with  their  contracts.  And  that  is  why 
Japanese  still  allow  their  parents  to  arrange  their  mar- 
riages for  them  without  consultation.  To  the  stranger 
in  Japan  this  cordiality  is  a  blessing,  for  otherwise  he 
would  miss  the  pleasure  of  thinking  he  has  an  attractive 


COUPLES  103 

personality.  Otherwise  he  would  watch  the  combina- 
tions on  the  street  and  fail  to  understand. 

For  instance,  it  is  more  than  common  to  see  couples 
and  families  pass  along  the  thoroughfare  together. 
There  is  that  distinction  between  a  Japanese  crowd  and 
a  western  one — that  children  are  so  invariably  present 
that  one  picks  out  the  young  childless  couples  as  a 
curiosity.  They  stand  above  the  mass.  As  they  move 
by,  all  the  tender  pride  of  race  is  seen  expressed.  Some- 
times a  tall  young  man  with  stiff-kneed  stride  (because 
of  his  wooden  clogs)  sways  in  his  gait  with  new-born 
pride,  his  flowing  garments  giving  before  the  wind.  At 
his  side  trots  the  dainty  little  creature  trying  to  keep  up 
with  him.  What  fearlessness,  what  cheerfulness  and 
hopefulness!  She  does  not  lag  behind,  not  she.  She  is 
the  modern  maid  of  Japan.  She  bends  slightly  forward 
as  before  the  winds  of  his  ambition ;  her  obi  (girdle  with 
tremendous  bow)  increases  the  angle  of  her  back,  but 
the  covering  kimono  softens  the  stoop  a  little.  Com- 
panionable, spirited,  and  appealing — she  wears  the  red 
pantaloon-skirt  of  the  school-girl,  and  moves  with  a 
grace  her  tightly  skirted  sisters  cannot  imitate. 

Everywhere  the  women  are  more  interesting  than  the 
men. 

There  was  a  little  woman  on  my  street  who  miracu- 
lously escaped  a  spanking.  She  was  round-faced  and 
red-cheeked,  and  moved  about  quickly  and  gaily,  bub- 
bling with  mischievous  intent.  She  was  quite  uncon- 
scious of  this  offensive  effect  she  had  on  me,  but  I  felt 
certain  that  a  spanking  to  stimulate  her  cheekiness  and 
playfulness,  leaving  spanker  and  spankee  in  a  merrier 
mood,  was  just  what  she  needed.  She  would  not  even 
flirt — so  she  should  have  been  as  sedate  and  self-effacing 
as  are  her  sisters. 

Two  girls  sat  behind  a  vender's  stand.  The  place 
was  in  front  of  a  noise-making  movie,  with  the  shrine 


io4  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

grounds  all  about  it.  While  the  vender,  lean  and 
lanky,  sought  to  induce  others  to  enjoy  his  delicacies, 
these  two  girls  sat  on  their  heels,  the  little  glass  dish 
held  within  two  inches  of  their  mouths,  their  heads 
slightly  bowed.  They  were  dirty  with  animal  negligence 
and  indifference.  They  were  small  with  rabbit-like 
smallness.  They  were  shy  with  puppy  shyness.  As 
each  raised  the  little  tin  spoon,  to  which  she  was  ob- 
viously unaccustomed,  to  her  mouth,  she  stole  a  glance 
upward  as  a  timid  little  puppy  would  over  his  milk. 
And  they  drew  in  the  long  strings  of  grayish  jelly  with 
a  sound,  and  turned  the  spoon  over  in  the  mess  for  more. 

Meanwhile  the  tall,  lanky  vender  stood  before  them, 
behind  his  "store,"  urging  the  passers-by  to  partake  of 
his  delicacy.  And  when  two  boys  came  up  and  presented 
their  sen  each,  he  put  his  hand  into  the  water  in  the  large 
wooden  box,  away  to  the  bottom,  pulled  out  an  oblong 
slice  of  grayish  jelly,  placed  it  in  the  oblong  channel  of 
the  wooden  mincer,  pushed  in  the  wooden  plug  till  the 
whole  of  the  jelly  emerged  in  square-shaped  strings, 
pushed  his  oblong  piece  of  ice  across  the  scraper,  gath- 
ered the  ice-shavings  into  the  plate  of  jelly-strings,  threw 
a  dash  of  colored  juice  over  the  mess — and  it  was  edible. 
And  the  sounds  of  satisfaction  slipped  behind  each  in- 
taking  of  jelly  as  it  disappeared  stomach- ward. 

Then  came  the  vender's  triumph.  The  two  girls 
asked  for  another  plate  each.  When  they  finished 
those,  they  passed  on,  leaving  the  tall  and  lanky  vender 
free  to  trade  with  other  passers-by. 

Foreigners  in  Japan  all  acclaim  the  sweetness  of  the 
Japanese  woman,  her  evenness  of  temper  and  selfless- 
ness, and  in  comparison  with  the  Japanese  man  doubt- 
less she  is  a  much  superior  creature  indeed.  But  only 
men  who  are  too  weak  to  desire  equals  in  their  mates 
will  set  the  Japanese  woman  above  the  western  woman 
as  superior  in  character  and  in  womanliness.  True, 


FLYING  CARP  105 

many  western  women  have  become  selfish  as  the  result 
of  coddling,  but  who  has  any  respect  for  a  person  who 
will  be  bullied  submissively  ?  A  Japanese  writer,  recom- 
mending Korean  women  to  Japanese,  said  that  if 
Japanese  knew  how  "docile"  the  Korean  girls  were 
they  would  not  hesitate  to  marry  them. 

Consequently,  lovable  and  sweet  as  most  refined 
Japanese  women  are,  their  lack  of  assertiveness  and  their 
self-effacement  make  them  more  to  be  pitied  than  ad- 
mired. I  noticed  this  at  the  barber  shop.  Everything 
was  quiet,  and  the  wife  would  assist  the  barber  with 
miraculous  precision.  Towels  would  be  brought  with- 
out being  asked  for,  and  everything  attended  to  without 
her  speaking  a  word.  The  daughter,  too,  assisted  at 
shaving,  and  seemed  as  though  she  were  from  another 
world. 

One  day  the  barber  had  to  go  to  Kyoto.  I  found  the 
girl  and  mother  attending  to  the  work  as  usual.  But 
how  different!  While  the  girl  shaved  me,  the  mother 
talked.  She  told  me  all  their  troubles,  though  her  face 
was  cheerful.  She  was  very  anxious  about  her  other 
daughter,  who  was  in  the  hospital  in  Kyoto.  Until  that 
day  I  had  not  heard  her  voice. 

Nothing  exemplifies  the  meekness  and  humility  of  the 
Japanese  woman  more  than  the  very  common  sight  of 
a  mother  nursing  a  sturdy  youngster  in  full  view  of  the 
general  public.  Once  a  middle-aged  woman  stood  upon 
the  street,  her  breasts  bare;  on  her  back  was  strapped  a 
baby.  Another  woman,  similarly  ridden,  stood  beside 
her.  A  pretty  little  baby  boy  stood  between  them. 
The  woman  with  the  bare  breasts  held  one  of  them  out 
to  the  little  boy  and  he  tasted  of  it  with  satisfaction. 
"Take  a  loan  of  mine"  might  have  been  a  good  caption 
for  that  picture.  It  is  not  the  so-called  immodesty  of 
the  Japanese  woman  which  permits  this,  as  is  so  often 
charged.  It  is  the  general  acceptation  of  her  status  as 


106  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

mother  that  leaves  her  unconscious  of  any  sense  of 
modesty.  A  woman  can  be  nothing  else;  then  why 
conceal  it?  The  ever-present  baby  on  the  back  makes 
of  motherhood  in  Japan  a  cross  upon  which  mankind 
has  hung  for  centuries.  Were  she  to  rebel  and  force 
man  to  bear  the  burden  of  children  with  her,  social  life 
would  be  better  symbolized  by  the  tori,  a  gateway  for 
human  progress.  It  comes  near  being  that  in  Japan, 
as  far  as  attention  to  babies  goes. 

The  old  women  in  Japan  seem  much  older  and  more 
withered  than  other  old  women  in  the  world.  That  is 
because  they  have  too  many  children  and  nurse  them 
too  long.  It  is  not  an  uncommon  sight  along  the  way 
for  a  youngster  from  two  to  six  years  old  to  stop  his  game 
to  have  a  lick  at  his  mother's  breast.  And  the  mother 
is  always  patient.  I  have  seen  but  one  case  of  a  woman 
slapping  a  child  in  anger. 

Race  suicide  is  as  yet  far  from  threatening  Japan. 
From  the  housetops — or  rather  from  the  forty-foot 
bamboo  poles — Japan  declares  the  fact  to  the  world  at 
large.  Enormous  cloth  carp,  done  in  their  brilliant 
colors,  float  in  the  wind  over  every  house  fortunate 
enough  to  have  a  boy  or  boys.  Open  at  both  ends, 
when  inflated  they  wiggle  just  as  the  live  fish  would 
wiggle  when  swimming.  They  seem  to  be  going  against 
the  wind  just  as  in  the  water  the  carp  works  his  way  up 
the  streams  against  the  currents.  And  this  is  the 
symbol  set  before  the  boy  in  Japan.  It  is  a  true 
symbol,  for  with  eight  hundred  thousand  children  coming 
into  the  Nipponese  world  every  year  over  and  above 
those  births  offset  by  deaths,  the  growing  youngster  had 
better  make  up  his  mind  to  test  his  strength  in  the  flood 
if  he  wants  to  get  up  into  the  fresher  headwaters  of  his 
Oriental  world. 

Yet  the  symbol  is  not  altogether  true.  For  no  baby 
in  the  animal  and  human  kingdoms  is  more  indulged 


BOYS  107 

than  is  the  little  one  of  Japan.  The  floating  carp  is  the 
symbol  of  his  reign,  the  squirming  thoroughfares  the 
explanation.  Here  he  is  master  of  man,  and  is  seen  in 
numbers  sufficient  to  enforce  his  rule.  The  people  of 
America  and  Europe  simply  have  no  conception  of 
what  a  surplus  of  babies  means,  in  the  Oriental  sense. 
To  be  unable  to  pass  down  the  most  important  business 
street,  or  to  board  a  car  or  a  train,  without  seeing  as 
many  children  as  grown-ups ;  to  be  unable  to  dissociate 
the  woman  from  the  child — which  is  ever  present  on  her 
back;  to  see  children  running  from  in  front  of  the 
motor-cars,  and  squirming  in  the  alleys,  piled  one  upon 
the  other  in  cruel  disregard  of  the  health  of  the  older 
ones,  and  in  shameful  degradation  of  the  unwilling 
mothers!  The  meekness  with  which  little  children— 
both  boys  and  girls — of  from  eight  years  up  submit  to 
being  saddled  with  their  baby  sisters  and  brothers  is 
indicative  of  their  lack  of  vitality.  Pretty  or  pathetic 
as  the  picture  of  Japanese  child  life  may  be,  their  ever- 
running  colds  and  ill-nourished  appearance  impress  one 
with  the  magnitude  of  the  problem  the  children  present. 
One  cannot  get  away  from  it.  But  somehow,  numerous 
as  children  are,  they  seem  to  have  a  place  all  their  own 
— and  one  delights  in  them  as  part  of  the  make-up  of 
the  East. 

They  are  not  so  active  as  the  children  of  the  West, 
and  consequently  get  less  in  the  way  of  the  adults  and 
require  less  disciplining.  Their  games  are  less  vigorous, 
and  many  seem  to  be  content  with  more  serious  occupa- 
tions than  mere  make-believe.  In  all  the  offices  and 
businesses  they  abound  in  great  numbers.  One  can- 
not understand  this — for  the  authorities  claim  a  98 
percent,  school  attendance.  In  the  stores  and  shops 
and  smithies  they  assist  with  an  attention  to  the  work 
in  hand  mature  beyond  their  age.  Over  a  certain  age 
they  do  not  stand  much  coddling,  taking  themselves 


io8  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

more  seriously  than  in  American  communities.  Even 
in  their  games  they  respond  in  such  a  way  as  to  give 
the  impression  of  appreciation  of  the  effect  of  present 
exercise  on  future  affairs. 

For  instance,  you  never  see  a  personal  fight;  but 
playing  soldier  is  quite  common.  Here  the  captain  has 
his  "men"  under  thorough  discipline,  you  may  be  sure, 
and  from  the  spirit  in  which  they  respond  to  his  com- 
mands it  is  no  child's  play  to  them.  The  promptitude, 
the  rigidity  into  which  they  stiffen  at  sound  of  attention, 
the  soldier-like  way  in  which  they  march  off,  are  a  credit 
to  the  militarism  of  which  their  misguided  elders  are  so 
proud. 

Two  boys  were  quarreling  near  Nunobiki  Waterfalls, 
the  only  instance  of  the  kind  I  had  seen  in  Japan. 
One  was  crying,  but  held  some  stones  in  his  hand,  with 
which  he  threatened  his  antagonist.  I  watched  to  see 
the  results,  but  the  strangest  thing  happened.  Two 
young  men  came  along.  One  of  them  stepped  up  to 
them,  gently  knocked  the  stones  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
youngster,  and  told  them  to  run  along.  In  America  the 
men  would  have  urged  them  on  to  battle. 

Wherever  you  go,  child  life  affords  peep-hole  glimpses 
into  the  life  of  the  people.  The  usual  self-consciousness 
of  the  grown-up  is  reflected  in  the  attitudinizing  of  the 
youngsters.  As  I  whirled  past  in  the  train,  one  day,  I 
saw  three  little  fellows,  naked  to  the  dirt  on  their  skins, 
posing  rigidly  and  jumping  about  flatfootedly — fencing 
with  sticks  for  swords,  just  as  the  samurai  are  supposed 
to  have  done  during  the  two  hundred  years  of  their 
indolent  superiority. 

Occasionally  you  see  child  nature,  with  its  wild  in- 
stincts, get  the  better  of  drilling.  So  one  day  I  came 
across  a  pygmy  army  skirmishing  up  the  pass  behind  the 
city  in  Cemetery  Valley.  It  was  out  for  victory.  But 
one  little  fellow  suddenly  spied  a  sparrow  attacking  a 


CHILD   PASTIMES  109 

semi  (cicada),  beloved  per  of  the  Japanese  boy.  He 
dashed  down  the  hillside  as  though  on  wings,  trilled  his 
tongue  in  a  flood  of  indignant  wrath,  chasing  the  mur- 
derous bird  from  spot  to  spot,  till,  having  killed  the 
insect,  the  sparrow  carried  it  away  through  the  air. 
In  size  the  boy  was  to  the  bird  what  the  bird  was  to 
the  semi.  His  tabi  (cloth  shoes)  had  been  worn  through 
the  toe  by  an  elder  brother  and  were  now  turned  up  and 
back  over  the  toes  of  their  present  occupant.  Though 
the  smallest  of  the  group,  he  ruled  the  army — and  after 
this  digression  for  the  sake  of  his  favorite  creature  he 
took  command  again. 

In  semi  season  the  boy  world  in  Japan  is  agog  with 
green  little  bamboo  cages  and  twenty-  or  thirty-foot 
bamboo  poles.  Groups  of  these  youthful  hunters  invade 
the  hills  and  poke  the  joyous  little  insects  off  their 
perches  into  captivity.  They  carry  them  about  in  their 
hands,  all  the  while  the  shrill  voices — either  in  furious 
protest  or  healthy  indifference — put  the  lazy  grasshopper 
to  shame.  Successful  hunters  may  have  a  dozen  or  more 
semi  in  their  cages — and  the  noise  they  make  is  enough 
to  gladden  the  heart  of  any  loving  child. 

Life  is  never  dull  to  the  Japanese  youngster.  All  day 
long,  when  his  mother  is  too  busy  to  fondle  him,  he 
watches  and  learns  life's  lessons  from  over  her  shoulder. 
His  father  is  not  as  yet  a  factory  worker  —  though 
many  have  lately  become  so — and  he  watches  and 
learns  his  trade  from  his  youngest  days.  And  he  never 
seems  to  be  in  the  way.  The  barber's  baby  was  bawling, 
but  there  was  no  frantic  rush  to  his  relief  so  common 
with  us.  Though  crying  is  common  enough  in  Japan, 
still,  this  lack  of  anxiety  on  the  part  of  the  mother,  her 
cold  temperament — or  rather,  suppressed  nature — keeps 
her  from  further  precipitating  erraticism  in  her  off- 
spring. So  while  the  baby  went  on  howling,  the  mother 
went  on  helping  and  the  father  went  on  shaving. 


i  io  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

On  the  main  street,  near  the  car  line,  four  youngsters 
came  along,  keen  with  curiosity.  They  were  staring  at 
the  white  man.  Two  were  inside  the  dilapidated 
baby-carriage,  one  about  three  years  old,  the  other 
about  seven;  the  third  pushed  the  cart,  which  was  front 
backward;  the  fourth  ran  along  the  side.  Upon  pegs 
in  the  chassis  of  the  carriage  hung  the  wooden  geta 
(shoes) — even  here  they  had  not  dared  to  enter  without 
removing  them.  The  wicker-basket  body  was  old  and 
worn.  They  came  to  a  halt  beside  me,  alert  with  sweet 
inquisitiveness.  The  youngest  looked  at  me  with  a 
happy  smile — pleased  to  see  that  I  was  friendly.  The 
others  were  also  unusually  alert,  not  staring  that  dull, 
thoughtless,  blank  stare  so  common  with  Japanese 
children.  We  were  friends  in  a  few  seconds,  and  they 
told  me  they  were  going  to  the  corner — quite  a  journey. 
Then  of  a  sudden  the  biggest — who  had  been  pushing — 
hopped  astride  the  wicker  body  of  the  cart,  just  over  the 
shoulders  of  the  smallest,  the  second  assistant  put  his 
hands  to  the  cart,  and  it  started  slowly  off.  I  was  waiting 
for  a  car.  Before  it  came  they  were  back  again.  They 
had  changed  their  minds  about  that  journey. 

It  is  amazing  to  see  the  number  of  children  crowd- 
ing the  book-stores,  looking  over  the  magazines.  It  is 
a  tribute  to  a  certain  humanity  in  business  in  Japan 
that  they  handle  these  highly  colored  periodicals  with 
their  crude  illustrations  without  being  disturbed  by  the 
proprietors.  Western  children  during  their  leisure  hours 
would  be  seen  revenging  themselves  on  inactivity  by 
games.  Here  they  seem  to  extend  their  long  school 
hours  in  self -instruction.  But  truth  to  tell,  the  absence 
of  libraries  in  which  our  youngsters  read  accounts  for 
this  poring  over  magazine  stands.  When  in  the  mass 
Japanese  children  revert  to  latent  childishness.  But 
even  in  the  courtyards  of  the  schools  there  is  none  of 
that  rampageous  wildness  of  our  school  grounds,  and 


SHOUT  "HOY"  AND  THIS  APPEARS  BUT  THIS  WILL  SOON  ORDER  THE  BOYS 


CURIOSITY  NEVER  AFFECTS  US  LIKE  THIS — BUT  A  SHIP  S  COME  IN 


THE  TENDERNESS  OF  JAPANESE  CHILDREN  IS  PATHETIC  AND  THEIR  NATURES 

ARE  LOVABLE 


NO  NOTION  OK  WHAT'S  HAPPENING,  IH:T  OBLIGING  JUST  THE  SAME 


LITTLE  SAMURAI  in 

in  place  of  howling  and  yelling  you  hear  a  humming 
and  squirming  like  that  of  a  hive.  It  may  be  that, 
besides  the  lack  of  sufficient  nourishment,  the  little 
skirts  of  their  kimonos  and  the  wooden  clogs  hamper 
their  activity,  yet  it  is  not  infrequent  to  see  wild  lads 
tearing  on  through  the  streets  in  perfect  ease. 

But  the  Japanese  boy  is  best  seen  to  advantage  with 
his  family  as  the  background.  With  a  cap  like  a  sol- 
dier's and  a  head  broader  behind  than  before — bumps 
which  would  mystify  any  phrenologist,  his  face  an  open 
book  of  imprinted  pages  to  a  physiognomist,  and  the  bear- 
ing of  a  daimyo — he  typifies  Japan  more  than  does  the 
adult  Japanese  himself.  Had  he  any  need  for  bullying, 
he  would  not  hesitate  to  resort  to  it,  but  he  never  finds  it 
necessary,  for  as  water  gives  way  before  solids,  so  every 
one  makes  way  for  him.  He  has  no  need  of  demanding 
room.  It  is  his.  He  cannot  command  attention,  for 
he  is  never  without  it.  He  is  master  of  his  environment 
as  long  as  he  is  a  baby.  His  troubles  begin  as  soon  as 
he  has  outgrown  that  stage,  but  until  then  he  is  every- 
body else's  trouble.  Such  a  one  was  the  object  of  the 
attention  of  two  men,  two  women,  and  a  poor,  unnoticed, 
miserable,  insignificant  little  girl,  one  day  while  on  the 
interurban  electric  car.  For  him  the  window  was 
shut;  he  walked  about  the  seats;  he  ate  oranges  from 
everybody's  share;  and  for  all  the  world  he  seemed  to 
smile  complacently  and  with  scorn  at  these  ministrations. 
The  wife  of  a  friend  of  mine  says  that  even  in  Los 
Angeles,  where  she  and  her  sisters  and  little  brother 
were  born,  they  took  his  superiority  for  granted. 

If  I  were  to  paint  a  picture  of  Japanese  national  life, 
it  would  group  itself  somewhat  like  this.  In  the  center 
would  be  the  boy,  borne  about  most  royally — yet  an 
ancestor-worshiper.  This  seems  somewhat  paradoxical. 
Why  isn't  he  being  worshiped?  The  way  of  the  world 

is  for  the  worshiped  to  stand  aloof  from  his  devotees. 
8 


ii2  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

But  our  Japanese  boy  performs  the  acrobatic  feat  of 
worshiping  his  parents  from  his  mother's  back. 

At  the  upper  left-hand  corner  of  the  canvas  he  would 
be  seen  wading  up  to  his  neck  in  slimy,  stagnant  moats, 
netting  fish.  When  he  caught  one  he  would  throw  it 
through  the  air  to  a  dozen  less  grown,  but  not  less  dirty 
youngsters  on  dry  land.  These  place  the  unfortunate 
creatures  in  a  basket.  Occasionally  the  boy  emerges, 
exhibiting  a  tanned  body  as  slimy  as  that  of  an  eel,  but 
a  face  of  utter  contentment. 

In  the  upper  right-hand  corner  he  would  appear  in  a 
more  divine  attitude.  He  would  be  making  his  priestly 
paces  behind  his  preceptor  in  the  temple  or  at  a  funeral. 
Though  self-conscious,  he  would  look  born  to  the  pro- 
fession. Or  he  might  be  stationed  behind  the  temple, 
given  a  thin  bamboo  pointer  and  a  shrine  of  relics,  and 
told  to  explain  the  worn-out  trappings.  In  life  his  voice 
is  the  shrill  monotone  of  the  Japanese  recitative.  His 
face  is  devoid  of  expression;  but  should  the  head  priest 
appear,  a  smile  of  childish  satisfaction  would  cross  him 
—pride  of  his  skill  and  his  learning  before  his  ideal. 

All  along  the  bottom  and  in  continuous  procession 
would  be  shown  marching  children — in  number,  legion— 
a  thing  as  much  a  part  of  the  Japanese  boy's  (and  girl's) 
life  as  it  is  of  the  life  of  the  soldier.  Nowhere  in  the 
wide  world  have  I  seen  so  much  parading  of  the  streets 
by  veritable  armies  of  youngsters  as  here  in  Japan.  At 
almost  every  turn  you  may  expect  to  meet  a  double 
file  of  tiny  tots  in  uniform,  with  the  Japanese  soldier's 
cap — marching — marching — marching — to  some  Shinto 
shrine  such  as  the  imperial  shrines  at  Yamada  Ise.  In 
fact,  it  was  the  last  thing  I  really  saw  in  Japan.  And  as 
I  stood  before  those  simple  thatch-roofed  huts,  made 
sacred  by  the  greatest  bit  of  political  charlatanism  extant 
to-day — saw  the  division  after  division  of  school-children 
brought  before  them,  commanded  to  bow  in  military 


KISS-LESS  AFFECTION  113 

fashion,  ordered  to  about  face  and  bow  to  another  set 
of  shrines  somewhere  beyond  the  hills  but  no  less  sacred 
—I  felt  that  not  all  the  affection  Japanese  parents  bear 
their  young  could  ever  compensate  them  for  this  great 
imposition. 

Nor  does  all  the  freedom  and  lordliness  afforded  the 
baby  in  Japan  compensate  it  for  want  of  one  of  the  ten- 
derest  of  human  actions — the  kiss. 


VII 

RECREATION 

UMANITY  in  Japan  amuses  itself  in  ways  not 
a  great  deal  different  from  our  own.  Except 
for  the  outpouring,  in  season,  to  view  the 
coming  of  the  plum-blossoms  or  the  pink-and- 
white  glory  of  the  cherry-trees  —  which,  in 
truth,  is  not  much  more  than  an  excuse  for  sake-drink- 
ing and  carnival  hilarity — Japan  shuffles  along  to  its 
parks  and  museums  and  zoos  in  just  the  same  indolent, 
pleasure-seeking  attitude  as  do  we.  At  its  zoos  it  feeds 
the  animals  with  roasted  beans  instead  of  peanuts,  and 
watches  the  monkeys  with  immodest  indifference  to  what 
would  elicit  from  westerners  a  sidelong  glance. 

Without  being  unduly  harsh  toward  the  Japanese,  I 
am  constrained  to  say  that  that  immodesty  is  only 
another  form  of  cruelty.  The  offspring  of  religious 
tenet  is  often  a  freak  of  nature.  It  is  so  in  the  case  of 
the  care  of  animals.  Because  the  teachings  of  Buddha 
forbade  the  killing  of  animals,  neglect  and  torture  are 
frequently  resorted  to  which  in  the  West  would  give 
grounds  for  action  by  the  Humane  Society.  It  is  no 
uncommon  occurrence  to  hear  the  cries  of  little  kittens 
that  have  been  put  out  to  starve  to  death  because  those 
responsible  do  not  want  to  kill  them.  Animals  in  Japan 
find  their  masters  hard  indeed.  Now,  where  the  lack 
of  modesty  makes  them  cruel  in  the  eyes  of  the  west- 
erner is  in  their  leaving  a  female  monkey  exposed  in  all 
the  disgusting  hideousness  of  giving  birth  to  a  young  one 
in  full  view  of  the  gawking  public. 


A  CARP  FOR  EACH  BOY 


NO  "WUXTRA,"  BUT  A  CLUSTER  OF 
JINGLING  BELLS 


FROM  THE  SUBLIME  TO  THE 
RIDICULOUS 


THE  UMPIRE  WITH  THE  SWORD  AND  THE  STENTOR  WITH  THE  SKIRT  ARE  JUST 

AS   IMPORTANT 


BUT   THE    UMPIRE    DOESN'T   TAKE    IIIMSKI.r    AS    SERIOUSLY    AS   THE    WINNER 


CRUELTY  TO  ANIMALS  115 

But  this  passive  cruelty  has  its  active  counterparts 
also.  In  the  zoo  at  Suma  (near  Kobe)  those  in  charge 
wanted  to  get  rid  of  a  bear  and  decided  to  bury  him 
alive.  In  the  Nara  zoo  the  keepers  have  put  a  small, 
rodent-like  creature  into  the  cage  with  monkeys.  The 
latter  attack  it  in  hordes  and  have  torn  the  hair  off  its 
back.  But  no  one  protested  against  this,  though  thou- 
sands have  watched  the  torture.  In  the  same  zoo  there 
is  a  monkey  with  a  chain  about  its  neck.  It  has  been 
there  for  years,  and  the  chain  has  worn  its  way  into  the 
flesh,  leaving  it  raw  and  unsightly.  The  chain  was 
placed  there  because  this  monkey  was  belligerent  and 
cross  in  nature  and  because  Japanese  Buddhists  will 
not  take  life.  In  the  Tokyo  zoo  is  an  elephant  in  a 
similar  situation,  with  the  chain  cut  deep  into  the 
beast's  foot.  Protest  from  an  influential  journal  like 
The  Japan  Chronicle,  time  and  time  again,  has  not  had 
the  slightest  effect.  In  Osaka  I  once  saw  a  little  sparrow 
flit  out  of  the  hands  of  a  little  boy  walking  beside  a 
grown-up  man.  But  the  poor  little  bird  got  no  farther 
than  about  six  feet  away,  for  it  was  suddenly  yanked 
back  by  the  wing,  round  which  was  fastened  the  end  of 
a  string.  His  fond  parent  scowled  at  me  for  protesting 
against  this  bit  of  cruelty. 

On  the  other  hand,  with  so-called  sacred  animals,  the 
Japanese  are  as  gentle  and  tender  and  kind  as  could  be 
desired.  The  dog  is  sacred  at  Koya-san,  but  worked 
very  heavily  at  Nara.  The  deer  roam  the  park  at  Nara 
almost  as  tame  as  domestic  animals,  and  are  fed  by  all 
visitors,  who  have  trained  them  to  bow  politely  in 
Japanese  fashion  before  receiving  the  round  brown  rice 
cake.  There  are  sacred  albino,  who  grow  fat  and  rest- 
less and  ill-tempered  for  want  of  sufficient  exercise. 
And  the  foreign  world,  as  it  wanders  with  the  Japanese 
in  their  public  places,  is  divided  in  its  opinion  as  to 
whether  they  are  the  most  humane  or  most  cruel  people 


ii6  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

in  the  world.  There  has  been  organized,  through  the 
influence  of  the  foreigners,  an  S.  P.  C.  A.,  but  it  is  as  yet 
receiving  scant  support  from  the  natives,  who  look  and 
laugh  at  the  chicken-hearted  foreigners  for  mixing  them- 
selves up  in  matters  that  don't  concern  them,  as,  for  in- 
stance, overloading  horses.  Eventually  they  will,  no 
doubt,  grow  less  indifferent.  But  so  far  recreation  to 
Japanese  does  not  seem  to  be  marred  by  sights  of 
unnecessary  cruelty. 

There  is  another  form  of  outdoor  recreation  in  Japan 
which,  though  at  present  deprived  of  its  potential  hurt- 
fulness,  is  harsh  in  spirit  at  least.  That  is  fencing. 
By  no  means  more  cruel  in  original  intent  than  our 
hunting  or  fencing  or  dueling,  still  in  mannerisms  it  has 
retained  all  the  appearances  for  harm  for  which  it  was 
designed.  The  yelping  attending  each  onslaught,  togeth- 
er with  the  stalking  attitudes  and  poses,  makes  of  this 
effete  art  a  living  symbol  of  a  former  barbarism.  Yet  it 
is  coming  back  into  favor  with  the  reaction  against 
much  that  is  western  in  the  life  of  present-day  Japan. 

The  reaction  is,  verbally  at  least,  away  from  football 
and  baseball.  The  latter  became  a  substitute  national 
game.  But  I  have  had  many  a  discussion  with  my 
Japanese  students  over  the  question  whether  in  the  end 
the  innovation  will  supersede  a  game  which  pleases  their 
national  vanity  more  —  individualistic  wrestling.  In 
their  games  Japanese  are  individualists;  in  social  life 
they  have  no  individuality,  a  curious  fact  in  view  of 
its  antithesis  in  our  characteristics.  In  baseball  the 
Japanese  have  done  remarkably  well.  In  tennis  a 
Japanese  has  won  the  amateur  world  championship. 
But  just  to  be  Japanese  they  have  expressed  themselves 
to  me  as  willing  and  anxious  to  throw  away  the  new  and 
return  to  the  old. 

And  what  is  that  old? 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  manliness  of  Japanese 


SELF-CONSCIOUS  SPORTS  117 

wrestling,  fencing,  and  judo,  their  basic  usefulness  is  too 
limited.  The  art  of  self-defense  is  necessary  in  a  world 
of  personal  danger;  with  that  overcome  there  must  be 
something  else  in  sports  to  stimulate  interest  and  make 
them  socially  valuable.  Japanese  sports  are  suited 
to  an  age  in  which  individual  prowess  won  for  the  great 
warrior  fame  and  glory.  But  modern  life  demands  the 
play  of  that  selfsame  prowess  between  groups  of  individ- 
uals. And  for  Japanese  to  try  to  throw  aside  group 
sports  on  false  national  pride  is  a  retrogressive  move. 

I  am  not  writing  as  a  sportsman  favoring  his  own  art. 
My  interest  is  in  psychology,  or  human  behavior. 
What  interest  I  took  in  Japanese  sports  was  in  order  to 
study  the  human  nature  behind  them. 

Japanese  athletic  arts  impressed  me  as  being  the  acme 
of  self-consciousness.  In  archery,  in  fencing,  in  all,  I 
am  sure  he  feels  historic  pride  rather  than  the  pleasure  of 
exercise  for  its  own  sake.  He  attitudinizes  in  ways  which 
in  the  West  would  be  regarded  as  unsportsman-like — 
a  trait  common  enough  among  cheap  pugilists.  When 
the  Japanese  enters  a  western  game  he  is  free  and 
vigorous,  but  in  his  own  he  becomes  offensively  showy. 
He  stamps  his  feet  and  swerves  his  weapon  in  ways 
frightfully  overbearing  and  cocky. 

Jujutsu  (or,  as  a  later  form  is  now  called,  judo]  is  very 
interesting,  though  it  begins  to  drag  toward  the  end.  A 
contest  consists  of  pairs  of  men  throwing  each  other,  one 
after  the  other,  the  victor  always  taking  the  next  op- 
ponent in  his  second  bout.  The  final  comes  out  the 
champion.  Occasionally  the  untaught  outsider  sees  a 
clever  and  thrilling  throw  or  an  adroit  parry.  At  one 
match  I  saw  one  man  throw  three  husky  fellows  before 
being  thrown  himself.  The  last  of  the  lot  threw  one 
big,  heavy  fellow  clear  over  his  shoulders.  But  I  no- 
ticed that  the  thrown  man  was  burning  with  rage  when 
he  rose,  and  his  comrades  rushed  to  him  with  vengeance 


n8  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

written  all  over  them.  Most  of  the  art  seems  to  be  in 
forestalling  the  acts  of  the  other.  Pairs  rise  from  the 
squatting  postures  they  have  assumed,  facing  each  other 
on  the  mats,  meet,  and  are  thrown  very  rapidly ;  and  it  is 
only  the  great  number  of  contestants  which  makes  the 
game  interesting  and  prolonged. 

A  wrestling-match  is  similarly  contested.  When  a 
national  game  is  announced,  the  streets  for  days  are 
agog  with  excitement.  Drummers  pass  over  highway 
and  byway  distributing  circulars  as  for  a  circus.  Thou- 
sands spend  the  whole  day  watching  it.  In  Kobe  it 
was  held  in  a  tent.  As  usual,  instead  of  seats  there  were 
mats  with  four-inch  boarding  separating  the  :< boxes." 
Again  the  communal  spirit  of  the  people  was  evidenced 
by  the  absence  of  individual  seating  arrangements. 

Osaka  that  day  was  challenging  Tokyo,  and  the 
champion  wrestler  of  Japan  was  to  appear.  It  was  his 
last  bout,  as  he  was  getting  too  old  for  the  game.  He 
wanted  to  retire  unconquered.  All  his  followers  were 
tense  with  anticipation. 

Having  located  my  Japanese  friends,  I  looked  about  to 
get  my  bearings.  It  was  nothing  unusual — a  mass  of 
squatting  people  ordering  their  rice  and  pickles  and  tea, 
or  smoking  their  cigarettes.  Only  a  few  women — and 
they  geisha — were  present.  The  stentorian  shout  of 
the  umpire  brought  my  attention  back  to  the  canopied 
ring  in  the  center.  He  was  a  glorious  sight  to  look  upon, 
reminding  one  of  Maude  Adams  in  "Chantecleer." 
Close-fitting  breeches,  tight  about  the  knees  but  some- 
what loose  at  the  thighs,  stockings,  cap,  and  jacket 
being  of  uniform  cloth,  he  was  the  last  word  in  gorgeous 
make-up.  His  attitudes  were  severe  throughout.  He 
continued  yelping  from  the  moment  he  was  announced 
by  a  squeaking,  shrill  youngster  till  the  bout  he  refereed 
was  over.  His  judgments  and  decisions  were  law. 

In  extreme  contrast  were  the  wrestlers.     They  were 


OVER-EATING—UNDER-DRESSING  1 19 

as  naked  as  he  was  overdressed ;  they  were  as  large  and 
fat  as  he  was  small  and  slender.  For  wrestlers  are  mon- 
strosities in  this  world  of  little  people — largely  through 
breeding,  but  as  much  through  feeding.  They  are  not 
handsome;  they  are  not  pleasant.  Here,  too,  self- 
consciousness  is  marked,  and  is  emphasized  by  the  top- 
knot, that  relic  of  the  old  days,  which  resembles  the 
pummel  of  a  Mexican  saddle.  They  are  coarse,  unin- 
tellectual-looking,  and  not  even  healthy,  for  their  skins 
are  very  often  marred  by  eruptions. 

But  none  of  this  seems  to  detract  from  their  skill  or 
minimize  their  importance  in  Japanese  eyes.  When 
each  set  of  wrestlers  arrived  on  the  arena,  they  formed  a 
circle  round  the  ring  and  locked  arms  over  each  other's 
shoulders.  They  appeared  in  glittering  embroidered 
aprons  bearing  their  family  crests  or  coats-of-arms; 
but  these  costumes  were  removed  prior  to  the  bout. 

The  wrestling  is  all  on  the  feet,  and  ends  instantly 
when  any  other  part  of  the  body  touches  the  ground,  or 
when  one  man  pushes  the  other  out  of  the  ring.  First  of 
all  they  rub  salt  on  their  palms,  rinse  their  mouths  to  be 
pure  in  event  of  death,  and  throw  salt  over  their  shoulders 
to  ward  off  evil  spirits.  Then  they  step  toward  the 
center  of  the  ring  and  commence  setting-up  exercises 
which  are  entirely  a  matter  of  raising  the  legs  forward, 
spreading  them  outward,  and  bringing  them  down  with 
tremendous  force,  at  the  same  time  slapping  the  thigh 
most  vigorously.  They  then  crouch,  spread  their  legs, 
face  each  other,  generally  the  right  hand  closed  in  a  fist 
and  extended  forward  toward  the  opponent,  sometimes 
both  hands  so  extended,  touching  the  ground.  Now 
they  glare  at  each  other  fiercely,  waiting  for  the  word  of 
the  umpire.  As  soon  as  that  is  given  each  lets  out  a 
bellow  and  makes  a  spring,  but  invariably  some  wrong 
move  makes  them  stop  and  go  all  through  the  per- 
formance again.  Sometimes  they  don't  even  spring, 


120  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

for,  when  watching  each  other,  they  see  no  special  ad- 
vantage to  be  gained — and  break  up  the  attempt  for  a 
few  seconds.  But  then  finally  they  grip.  The  umpire 
begins  his  yelping,  frantically  dancing  round  and  round 
about  them,  and  they  move  about  with  an  alacrity  one 
would  hardly  have  credited  their  ponderous  weights. 
They  shuffle  and  pull  and  slap  each  other,  gripping  the 
girdle  round  the  groins  with  iron  tenacity.  This  lasts 
a  couple  of  minutes;  one  is  pushed  out  of  the  ring  or 
makes  a  bad  step  and  the  bout  is  over.  And  two  others 
come  on. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  the  final  set  came  on,  including 
the  national  champion,  who  bore  a  little  baby  in  his  arms 
lost  in  a  blaze  of  exquisite  red  kimonos.  They  formed 
their  circle,  presented  the  child  to  the  crouching  umpire, 
and  began  clapping  their  hands  and  gesturing  in  a  manner 
not  unlike  that  of  the  Fijians.  By  this  ceremony  the 
child  was  imbued  with  great  strength — the  champion's 
strength — and  would  become  a  great  wrestler. 

Then  they  proceeded  to  eliminate  one  another,  until  the 
final  bout.  The  champion  and  his  aspiring  antagonist 
met.  It  was  a  tense  few  minutes.  The  champion  was 
the  biggest  man  of  them  all;  his  opponent  half  his  size. 
They  glared,  they  pounced,  they  clinched.  The  tussle 
was  interrupted  by  the  slipping  of  the  girdle.  The 
umpire  called  time;  the  belt  must  be  adjusted.  But  to 
relinquish  the  grip  the  champion  had  upon  his  assailant 
for  a  fraction  of  a  second  would  be  to  lose  all.  He  had 
doubled  his  arms  round  those  of  the  other  and  brought 
his  fists  together  in  the  smaller  man's  face.  While  the 
umpire  was  adjusting  the  girdle,  you  could  see  the  whole 
energy  of  the  victor  so  concentrated  in  such  a  grip  as 
would  have  broken  an  ordinary  man's  arms.  A  slap  on 
the  shoulders  of  the  big  fellow  by  the  umpire — and  the 
two  began  to  dance  about  again  like  puppets.  Not 
many  minutes  later  the  champion  had  so  turned  the 


WRESTLING  FOR  A  THRONE  121 

other  round  as  to  place  him  with  his  back  to  the 
ring.  He  maneuvered  so  as  to  push  him  out.  He  suc- 
ceeded, but  the  other  yielded  outward,  overbalanced  his 
conqueror,  and  brought  him  with  him  with  one  foot  out 
of  the  ring!  A  tie. 

Not  so  thought  the  crowd.  A  second  of  silence,  and 
then  there  rose  a  murmur  full  of  menace.  There  had 
been  not  a  little  sake-drinking,  and  one  or  more  were 
under  its  influence.  One  had  been  making  himself  a 
nuisance  for  some  time,  but  no  one  ejected  him.  The 
patience  of  the  Japanese  is  admirable.  But  it  has  its 
limits.  At  this  sudden  turn  in  the  contest  bottles  began 
to  fly,  and  those  who  supported  the  champion  closed 
against  the  others  in  a  riot.  The  police  came  in  and 
soon  poured  the  oil  of  their  authority  on  these  troubled 
waters,  and  the  spectacle  was  at  an  end. 

The  champion,  fearing  complete  conquest,  withdrew 
from  the  profession  on  account  of  age. 

Sumo,  or  wrestling,  is  an  art  almost  as  old  as  is  Japan 
itself,  having  been  known  as  far  back  as  23  B.C.  Sukune 
was  the  first  champion,  and  has  been  enshrined  as  a 
tutelary  deity  by  succeeding  wrestlers.  There  is  even  a 
record  to  the  effect  that  in  858  the  two  sons  of  Buntoku 
Tenno  chose  that  method  in  deciding  which  of  them 
should  ascend  the  throne.  Wrestling  has  always  been 
the  art  of  the  samurai  who,  not  wishing  to  sully  his 
sword  in  contest  with  a  commoner,  resorted  to  the 
tricks  of  the  wrestler  or  of  its  offspring,  jujutsu,  to  van- 
quish him.  Wrestlers  even  formed  a  guild  of  several 
grades,  the  highest  being  composed  of  the  elders,  who 
were  at  one  time  second  in  rank  to  the  samurai. 

Wrestling  takes  the  same  place  in  Japanese  interest 
as  does  prize-fighting  in  the  West,  and  is  in  consequence 
bound  to  attract  only  a  minority.  The  vast  majority 
must  find  their  recreation  in  the  theaters — especially 
the  women,  who  would  no  more  think  of  going  to  a 


m  JAPAN-REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

wrestling-match  than  one  of  our  women  who  respects 
her  name  would  think  of  witnessing  a  prize-fight.  The 
wrestling  "fans  "  are  lost  on  the  busy  theatrical  thorough- 
fares. Here  the  crowd  of  an  evening  is  so  thick,  not- 
withstanding the  utter  absence  of  wheeled  traffic,  that 
you  shuffle  your  way  along  behind  one  another  at  a 
slow  pace. 

From  curb  to  cornice,  lights  glow  in  the  night,  entic- 
ing people  on  and  in.  Long  streaming  banners  impend 
from  bamboo  poles  projecting  from  the  windows,  an- 
nouncing the  attractions.  These  are  various — recitation- 
houses,  vaudeville,  dramatic  performances,  and  the  now 
universal  movies.  The  first  mentioned  are  the  most 
easily  accessible.  They  cost  only  five  or  ten  sen. 

Here  the  communal  atmosphere  is  again  in  evidence. 
There  isn't  the  gulf  between  the  stage  and  the  people. 
It  is  more  like  a  house-party  in  which  those  who  can  get 
up  to  entertain  the  guests  do  so.  Sometimes  the  guests 
themselves  rise  to  the  occasion.  In  the  meantime,  the 
guests  sit  on  their  matted  floors  and  cushions,  rent  fire- 
boxes and  order  tea,  food,  or  fruit,  and  even  the  women 
smoke.  Women  and  men  mingle  freely  now,  not  as  in 
old  Japan.  All  call  across  to  the  actors,  stimulating 
naturalness  and  ease.  There  is  none  of  that  taking 
sweetheart  to  the  theater  as  with  us — in  Japan  the 
family  goes.  Nobody  is  left  at  home.  As  cheap  as  are 
servants  and  as  ever  present  as  they  seem  to  be,  yet 
mothers  never  think  of  leaving  their  children  and  babies 
at  home,  no  matter  where  they  go  and  what  the  hour. 
Thus  the  theater  is  alive  with  squirming  youngsters. 
They  pass  in  among  the  audience  and  clamber  up  the 
stage.  Artistic  as  the  Japanese  have  been  advertised 
to  be,  none  of  the  crudities  and  incongruities  of  decora- 
tion seem  to  bother  them  for  a  moment.  Amusement  is 
not  to  be  found  on  the  stage  alone,  but  is  just  as  likely  to 
be  seen  in  the  audience.  On  one  occasion  the  "make- 


THESE  WRESTLERS  ARE  MONSTROSITIES  IN"  THIS  WORLD  OK  LITTLE  I'KOI'LK 


THEATER  AND  MOVIES  123 

up  "  of  one  little  fellow  in  foreign  clothes  put  all  theatrical 
make-up  to  shame.  His  little  trousers  were  full-grown 
pants.  They  were  supposed  to  be  supported  by  sus- 
penders, but  for  comfort's  sake  the  suspenders  were 
down,  and  the  trousers  were  standing  on  their  own 
dignity. 

What  there  was  to  laugh  at  on  the  stage  itself  he  who 
cannot  understand  the  language  fails  to  see.  The  acting 
is  anything  but  funny,  and  when  it  isn't  very  ordinary 
it  is  extremely  vulgar.  This  is  not  preconceived  preju- 
dice. That  which  is  vulgar  is  vulgar  whether  done  by 
a  Japanese  or  a  chimpanzee.  Yet  the  people  present 
were  respectable-looking,  though  their  laughter  detracted 
from  any  such  assurance.  That  is  one  of  the  perplex- 
ities of  the  Japanese  nature.  Examples  could  be  given, 
but  they  would  not  be  printable.  Yet  the  people 
are  universally  known  to  be  refined  and  gentle.  And 
they  are.  Japan  is  rich  in  extremes,  and  you  will 
see  human  lotus  flowers  growing  out  of  the  mud  in 
ancient  moats  round  castles  of  habit  —  to  borrow  a 
Buddhist  parable. 

Japanese  vaudeville  is  a  mixture  of  drama  and  farce, 
as  is  ours,  and  the  audience  is  of  a  more  refined  type, 
but  it  is  at  the  cinematograph  that  the  mixture  shown, 
both  of  the  attractions  and  in  the  audience,  is  most 
pronounced.  The  movie  is  the  great  leveler  in  Japan, 
as  elsewhere.  It  is  through  the  movie  that  Japan  gets 
its  notions  of  western  life  and  manners;  it  is  through 
the  movie  that  it  seeks  to  preserve  its  medieval 
morality.  It  is  at  the  movie  that  it  is  trying  to  adjust 
its  notions  of  family  and  the  changes  in  the  relations 
of  the  sexes. 

Nothing  in  all  Japan  gives  one  the  feeling  of  having 
entered  a  hive  more  than  the  darkened  cinematograph 
theater.  The  building  is  thick  with  tobacco  smoke  and 
human  odors.  The  pit  and  balconies  are  crowded — 


i24  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

not  iii  the  orderly  regularity  of  seat  behind  seat,  but  in  a 
perfect  jumble  of  humanity,  from  the  topmost  gallery 
down  to  the  stage  and  flowing  over.  Aside  from  the 
murmur  of  voices,  there  rises  the  sound  of  the  lecturer, 
that  strange  innovation  according  to  Japanese  needs,  the 
man  who  tells  the  story  of  the  pictures  in  every  detail. 
He  often  enough  adds  details  of  his  own,  not  always 
mentionable,  but  on  the  whole  he  supplies  that  sixth 
sense,  or  perhaps  the  fifth,  which  is  somewhat  lacking — 
the  sense  of  quick  perception. 

The  movies  perhaps  more  than  any  other  force  in 
Japanese  life  is  making  for  the  enlightenment  of  the 
people  and  democratization.  There  the  people  see  out 
into  the  world  at  large,  there  they  are  brought  together 
under  conditions  not  a  little  alarming  to  the  conserva- 
tives of  Japanese  officialdom.  So  much  so  that  the  of- 
fic'als  have  extended  the  censorship,  exercising  rigorous 
cor." "ol  over  exhibitions.  But  there  never  has  been  a 
censor  bright  enough  to  note  those  subtle  touches  which 
are  more  dangerous  to  the  grip  of  the  bureaucrat  than 
the  obvious  things  at  which  he  snatches. 

""  D  a  nation  whose  women  (except  the  geisha)  until 
wiihin  a  generation  or  two  ago  were  never  found  mixing 
freely  with  men  in  public  the  sudden  opening  of  the 
homes  was  bound  to  create  trouble.  With  the  advent 
of  the  movies  the  situation  was  aggravated.  Naturally, 
men  accustomed  to  seeing  in  public  only  approachable 
women  would  not  know  what  to  do  when  they  found 
another  variety.  In  the  home,  men  knew  well  enough 
how  to  act  toward  their  women;  but  in  public  how, 
under  the  circumstances,  could  they  be  expected  to? 
The  fault  lies  with  the  code  which  makes  of  woman  a 
slave,  to  be  summoned  at  every  whim.  There  is  in  the 
home  no  especial  occasion  for  our  kind  of  courtesy. 
With  no  chairs,  how  should  a  Japanese  know  that  it  is 
kind  to  give  a  woman  a  seat  ?  Is  there  not  room  enough 


GULF  BETWEEN  THE  SEXES  125 

for  her  to  sit  in  her  proper  place?  In  the  street-car  it 
is  quite  otherwise,  but  how  is  Mr.  Nippon  to  understand 
without  a  lecturer  to  guide  him?  So  he  jumps  to  the 
seat  and  keeps  to  it.  Thus,  one  of  the  things  which 
disturbs  Japanese  moralists  more  than  all  else  is  this 
breaking  down  of  the  custom  of  coddling  men  at  the 
expense  of  the  women.  Much  there  is  in  the  West,  he 
says,  which  is  worthy  of  imitation,  but  one  thing  is  for 
the  Japanese  demoralizing,  and  that  is  the  way  western 
men  do  things  for  their  women.  Women  would  become 
so  selfish,  he  urges — and  fails  to  see  how  selfish  the 
Japanese  men  have  become.  Thus,  the  street-car  is  a 
source  of  democratization — sluggish  as  may  be  the  prog- 
ress— and  the  movie  is  its  unfoldment. 

The  gulf  which  exists  between  the  sexes  outside  the 
Japanese  home  was  artificial.  As  soon  as  the  barriers 
were  removed,  the  gulf  was  flooded  by  an  inrush  of  people 
eager  for  amusement.  Recently  the  authorities,  with 
the  usual  absence  of  understanding  of  human  nature, 
issued  a  mandate  for  the  separation  of  the  sexes  in  the 
theaters.  How  and  to  what  extent  immorality  could  be 
practised  at  the  cinematograph  they  did  not  explain. 
Perhaps  daring  mimics  kissed  their  female  companions 
in  the  dark  while  watching  the  foreign  lovers  in  the 
pictures.  If  so,  the  censors  have  provided  against  the 
danger.  During  six  months  of  1919  alone  they  removed 
2,160  kisses  from  the  American  reels. 

Yet  one  never  hears  anything  about  dirty,  unsanitary 
picture-houses  and  the  dangerous  overcrowding. 

The  regulation  was  that  no  man  may  bring  a  woman 
into  a  theater,  be  she  ever  so  respectable,  and  sit  beside 
her.  And  the  law  feels  that  it  has  obstructed  the  change 
in  a  custom  which  it  regards  more  highly  than  progress. 
But  again  it  may  be  said  that  the  political,  moral,  and 
intellectual  transition  in  Japan  will  come  about  largely 
through  the  western  pictures.  Already  the  cinema  has 


126  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

brought  the  woman  out  of  her  isolation ;  it  has  made  her 
discontented  with  her  lot;  it  has  shown  her  what  is  the 
status  of  other  women  in  the  world.  It  is  introducing 
a  new  chivalry  in  place  of  the  doubtful  bushido.  The 
pictures  of  samurai  days  still  draw  great  numbers — 
pictures  showing  dexterity  in  cutting  off  men's  heads 
and  leaving  languishing  maidens  behind,  forsaken  for  the 
sake  of  a  liege  lord.  In  the  newer  chivalry  she  sees  men 
courteous  to  women  beyond  anything  she  has  ever 
known;  devotion  to  one's  love  which  knows  no  greater 
loyalty.  And  the  children  she  brings  along,  less  set  in 
their  ways,  and  therefore  less  discriminating  according 
to  preconceived  notions,  will  accept  the  standards  of  the 
one  or  the  other  which  really  and  truly  fit  their  particu- 
lar needs.  Thus  one  sees  in  the  picture  theater,  with 
all  its  drawbacks,  a  force  for  the  enlightenment  of  Japan 
not  to  be  ignored. 

Strange  and  inexplicable  is  the  way  of  the  East.  At 
the  very  time  the  regulation  for  the  segregation  of  the 
sexes  at  the  theaters  was  promulgated  a  hygienic  exhi- 
bition including  sexual  diseases  was  drawing  thousands 
from  Kobe's  households.  The  promiscuous  crowding 
was  typical  of  that  phase  of  Japanese  life  I  have  chosen 
to  call  communal.  The  small  structure  in  which  the 
exhibition  was  held  squeaked  with  the  weight  of  the 
people.  They  had  to  be  released  in  batches  or  else  the 
upper  floor  would  certainly  have  given  way. 

That  Japan  is  keeping  step  with  European  nations  was 
only  too  clearly  shown  by  the  extent  and  variety  of  the 
diseases  illustrated  here.  In  the  matter  of  sexual  dis- 
eases there  is  indeed  racial  equality  the  world  over. 
But  in  the  method  of  handling  them  Japan  is  in  a  sense 
superior.  It  separates  the  sexes  at  the  movies,  but 
herds  them  where  they  might  learn  the  consequences 
for  which  they  are  equally  responsible  and  to  which 
they  are  equally  liable.  Further  paradoxes  are  not 


SIGNS  AND  UMBRELLAS  ARE  FOREIGN,  BUT  CO-OPERATION  IS  NOT 


THIS  FISH-MARKET  WAS  ALIVE  AT  4  A.M. 


WOMEN    PILE-DRIVERS    EACH    WITH    A    ROPE-END    AND    A    PATHETIC    CHANT 


THE  I.ITTI.E  WHEAT  USED  CAN  RE  THRESHED  HY  THE  OLD-FASHIONED  FLAIL 


WOMEN  SHUT  OUT  127 

wanting.  It  places  this  exhibition  not  far  from  the 
legally  recognized  restricted  districts,  it  exhibits  the 
effects  of  sexual  error  in  the  most  certain  forms,  it  mixes 
home  hygiene  with  personal  hygiene.  But  the  doors  to 
political  meetings  are  shut  to  women. 

Follow  the  social  life  of  the  Japanese  and  you  will 
find  that,  undemonstrative  as  he  may  be,  he  is  absorbing 
much  more  than  we  think. 
9 


VIII 

CRAFTSMANSHIP 

*HE  Japanese  is  in  a  sense  open  to  conviction 
when  the  change  asked  of  him  is  not  too 
obvious.  But  in  the  matter  of  creative 
activity  his  unwillingness  to  yield  is  most 
exasperating.  He  is  ready  to  lose  your 
trade  rather  than  alter  his  method  one  iota.  In  other 
words,  he  is  polite  enough  to  listen  to  you  and  camou- 
flage his  interest,  but  try  to  bind  him  to  it  and  you  find 
him  a  conservative  to  the  core. 

True  as  it  may  be  that  the  Japanese  unmachine-like 
processes  are  more  humane,  their  methods  remind  me  of 
the  ways  of  ants  and  bees.  They  cannot  do  things 
single-handed.  A  little  job  to  be  done  is  attacked  by  a 
group,  each  one  working  in  his  own  way,  regardless  of  the 
labor  or  method  of  the  other.  This  is  true  of  the  house- 
holder, but  no  less  so  of  the  trader  and  craftsman. 

The  family  relationship  clings  like  a  canker  to  his  pre- 
ternaturally  slow  and  docile  workmanship.  This  com- 
munal atmosphere  issues  from  the  stores  as  perceptibly 
as  does  the  stock  which  is  for  sale.  It  pervades  all  of 
the  lesser  industries.  It  is  the  cause  of  so  much  of  the 
unnecessary  labor  found  hanging  round  the  shops. 
Proprietors  will  keep  members  of  their  families  on  hand, 
though  they  are  not  earning  the  air  they  breathe. 

Japan  is  not  yet  so  industrialized  that  the  break-up  of 
the  family  in  trade  may  be  said  to  have  taken  place. 
The  home  and  the  business  are  still  so  closely  connected 


THE  COMMUNITY  IN  TRADE  129 

that  association  with  the  one  throws  light  upon  the  other, 
and  vice  versa.  With  the  shop  as  the  front  part  of  the 
home  and  the  members  of  the  family  as  the  laborers, 
one  obtains  at  a  glance  the  effects  of  the  one  on  the  other 
and  insight  into  social  conditions  elsewhere  obscured. 
Until  that  intimacy  is  broken  up,  efficiency  in  its  human 
sense,  and  not  merely  in  the  sense  of  turning  out  great 
quantities  of  products,  is  impossible. 

For  instance,  there  seem  to  be  no  regular  hours  of 
labor  except  as  controlled  by  fatigue.  And  side  by  side 
with  the  usefully  employed  will  be  seen,  day  and  night, 
idlers,  and  the  shifting  from  one  to  the  other — from 
idleness  to  industry — seems  a  matter  of  volition. 

Coming  from  an  extended  visit  in  Australia  and  New 
Zealand,  where  everything  regarding  labor  was  circum- 
scribed— where  labor  was  enforced  along  with  idleness, 
and  leisure  was  cramped  with  limitations,  I  must  con- 
fess to  a  sense  of  luxury  in  the  ways  of  Japan.  In  spite 
of  the  incessant  whirl  of  traffic  in  things,  I  have  never 
heard  so  much  singing  as  on  the  streets  of  China  and 
Japan.  Men  and  boys  rush  pell-mell  through  the 
streets,  yet  peace  seems  to  abound  within  them  or  they 
would  not  sing  so  freely.  The  chantey  is  not  yet  a  thing 
of  the  past  in  Japan.  They  chant  while  flattening  a 
repair  in  the  road,  or  while  pulling  a  rope  with  a  weighty 
burden,  or  shifting  a  rock  of  several  tons'  weight.  At  all 
tasks  they  work  in  common  and  ease  each  other's 
burden  by  chanting.  Modern  industrialism  has  so 
completely  individualized  our  tasks  that  real  co-opera- 
tion is  a  thing  of  the  past.  Not  so  in  Japan. 

That,  I  believe,  is  the  secret  of  toil  in  Japan.  There 
are  girls  working  everywhere,  but  in  the  department 
stores,  amid  all  the  noise  of  "auctioneers"  and  hammers, 
I  have  time  and  again  seen  something  no  floorwalker  in 
twentieth-century  New  York  could  tolerate  for  a  moment 
and  keep  his  job.  A  girl,  on  her  knees  in  Japanese 


130  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

fashion,  but  doubled  over  as  in  prayer,  the  world  and 
its  wares  glittering  and  shuffling  round  about  her — 
fast  asleep.  Pathetic?  Indeed!  Heartrending!  But 
she  slept.  How  many  seconds  of  the  eight  or  nine  hours 
of  our  department-store  girl's  day  could  she  spend  in 
sleep  unmolested,  no  matter  what  her  condition?  It  is 
this  seeming  freedom  which  is  more  dear  to  the  Japanese 
laborer  than  all  laws  of  economy. 

Take  the  boy,  howling  with  a  larynx  almost  gone, 
pounding  with  a  leather  "hammer"  upon  the  table 
before  him.  He  looked  tired.  But  he  felt  grown-up. 
Child  labor  is  wrong,  and  we  have  nothing  to  brag  of  in 
that  way  ourselves,  but  mere  suppression  is  an  uncertain 
remedy.  Another  boy  might  prefer  to  howl  his  lungs  out 
on  the  playground.  Japanese  boys  take  to  their  tasks 
with  a  sobriety  amazing  and  perplexing  to  the  foreigner. 

This  communal  flexibility,  the  outgrowth  of  the 
family  connections  of  labor  and  industry,  affords  an  easy 
transition  from  labor  to  leisure  which,  wasting  in  material 
results,  is  a  gain  in  life. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  handicraftsmen.  Contact  with 
the  actual  maker  of  things  is  a  delight  to  the  arrival  from 
the  West.  If  you  want  a  table,  you  simply  go  to  a 
furniture  dealer  and  order  what  you  wish.  Shoes, 
clothing,  well-nigh  everything  can  be  done  according  to 
fit  or  order.  The  work  is  done  with  a  certain  amount  of 
finish  of  which  you  had  had  no  anticipation.  But 
though  there  are  many  who  regard  the  workmanship  of 
the  Japanese  cabinet-maker  and  boot-maker  as  of  as 
good  quality  as  anything  done  in  the  more  industrialized 
parts  of  the  world,  there  is  much  that  is  unacceptable. 
Specialization  in  the  way  of  ready-made  goods  has  at 
least  this  virtue — you  see  them  and  buy  them  or  reject 
them  without  loss  of  time.  In  Japan,  if  you  have 
plenty  of  patience,  you  may  after  three  or  four  attempts 
succeed  in  getting  just  what  you  ordered.  Whatever 


SOUL  AND  SOULLESSNESS  131 

gain  one  has  in  the  pleasure  of  feeling  the  hand  of  the 
artisan  in  his  desk  or  chair  is  lost  in  the  irritating  delays 
which  invariably  go  with  their  acquisition.  The  patience 
wasted  in  constantly  turning  up  to  find  things  made  a 
little  differently  from  what  you  asked  for,  or  delayed 
day  after  day,  is  a  strain  on  one's  temper.  It  is  a  shock 
to  one's  sense  of  timeliness  and  precision.  You  never 
can  get  the  simplest  thing  done  on  the  moment.  I  once 
had  a  leather  case  polished,  but  part  of  it  was  left  undone 
—just  a  few  inches  of  strap.  I  called  the  leather- 
maker's  attention  to  this,  but  he  reduced  the  total 
cost  of  the  job  by  30  per  cent  rather  than  do  it  that 
moment.  The  simplest  little  task  is  deferred — the 
dealer  invariably  asking  two  or  three  days  for  time  in 
which  to  do  it.  Delay  is  chronic.  I  have  yet  one 
pleasure  to  experience  in  Japan — the  exception  to  this 
rule. 

One's  life  in  the  Orient  is  one  continuous  process  of 
hunting  down  such  details  as  in  the  ordinary  world  seem 
to  look  after  themselves.  And  the  most  amazing  feature 
of  it  all  is  the  bland  indifference  of  the  native  to  your 
discomfiture.  If  a  thing  doesn't  suit  you,  even  though 
you  ordered  it — you  needn't  take  it.  Japanese  dealers 
will  let  you  go  away  without  making  a  purchase  rather 
than  effect  the  simplest  readjustment  to  your  needs.  I 
had  ordered  a  flat-top  table  desk  with  green-felt  cover, 
but  found  the  felt  had  not  been  tucked  in  properly. 
The  man  had  stained  it  to  suit  my  special  requirements, 
yet  he  preferred  to  take  it  back  rather  than  finish  it  off 
to  suit  me.  "Shikata  ga  nail"  Oh,  the  sound  of  that 
agglutinated  negative  always  accompanied  by  a  shrug! 
"It  can't  be  helped!"  "Way  of  doing  is  not!"  "Re- 
source or  alternative  is  not !"  And  indeed  there  is  not— 
not  that  nor  anything  else.  Alternative?  Plead  and 
see  yourself  scorned  without  mercy.  Threat?  Only 
to  know  that  the  junsa,  or  policeman,  would  put  you 


132  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

through  the  third  degree  and  then  leave  you  as  little 
satisfied  as  before.  You  cannot  punch  them,  you  can- 
not warn  them,  you  cannot  "do"  them.  "Shikata  ga 
nail"  Fate  never  rewarded  western  efficiency  or 
American  training  never  to  say  "I  can't"  with  a  more 
immovable  mountain  of  indifference. 

You  enter  a  store  and  stand  and  stare  for  as  long  as 
you  have  patience,  while  the  proprietor  squats  in- 
differently on  the  mats.  Then  you  ask  for  the  thing 
you  want.  He  says  he  hasn't  it  in  stock.  At  first, 
inexperienced  foreigner,  you  go  out;  but  soon  you  learn 
to  look  for  yourself.  In  most  cases  it  is  before  his  very 
eyes.  One  might  continue  in  this  vein  without  end, 
coming  finally  to  incidents  which  accumulate  into  the 
trials  of  the  foreign  exporter,  who  knows  when  he  places 
a  contract  that  the  goods  will  not  be  produced  on  time 
nor  finished  according  to  order.  Oh,  of  course  there  are 
exceptions.  But  these  exceptions  are  generally  of  a 
class  which  belongs  in  one's  first  days  in  Japan. 

No  contract,  except  with  the  most  specialized  concerns, 
such  as  the  big  dockyards  and  steamship  companies,  is 
of  any  value.  Most  manufacturers  take  on  as  much 
work  as  they  can  promise  in  a  lifetime,  and  depend  on 
your  having  waited  too  long  for  them  to  produce  the 
goods  to  be  able  to  go  elsewhere  for  duplication.  The 
case  of  the  young  American  boy  sent  out  to  represent 
an  American  brush  concern  is  typical.  He  ordered 
forty  thousand  toothbrushes,  which  were  promised  for 
a  set  date.  They  were  not  ready.  Threats  of  suit  and 
withdrawal  were  of  no  avail.  When  the  brushes  finally 
came  they  were  a  quarter  of  an  inch  shorter  in  the 
bristles  than  contracted  for. 

The  Nipponese  tradesman  and  craftsman  is  hypnotist 
in  method.  He  tries  to  impress  you  with  his  indifference. 
In  the  Oriental's  life  there  is  much  of  elasticity,  of 
flexibility,  and  greater  humanity.  But  from  the  point 


PRAYER  AND  LABOR  133 

of  view  of  method  it  fails.  Waste  of  labor  is  a  curse, 
and  in  Japan  the  sheer  frittering  away  of  human  toil  is 
heartrending.  And  at  every  turn  the  waste  is  evident. 
Every  shop  has  half  a  dozen — and  more — of  worthless 
helpers  about.  The  proprietor  keeps  them  because  he 
hasn't  the  heart  to  discard  them.  So  that  instead  of 
becoming  self-supporting  they  hang  about,  waiting  for 
support.  Yet,  though  many  pray  for  fortunes,  no  people 
in  the  world  believe  so  ardently  and  sincerely  in  the 
value  of  elbow  grease  as  a  means  of  securing  their 
wants  as  the  Japanese. 

For  example.  A  certain  brush-factory  in  Kobe  was 
organized  by  a  Japanese  evangelist  to  give  labor  to  some 
poor  in  whom  he  was  interested.  He  succeeded  in 
getting  others  interested,  including  a  foreigner.  The 
money  was  invested,  the  building  rented  at  a  very  low 
rental.  Good!  But  so  poor  was  it  in  structure  that  it 
required  constant  alteration  and  repair  to  make  it  suit- 
able. The  meager  funds  were  soon  absorbed  in  this 
frittering — twenty  yen  a  month  for  rent,  seven  hundred 
yen  for  repair.  The  foreigner  kept  his  eyes  on  the  way 
it  was  being  worked.  He  would  come  in  to  find  twenty 
women  doing  nothing,  but  they  would  rush  wildly  at 
something  the  instant  he  entered.  Upon  inquiry  he 
was  told  that  these  poor  women  were  being  kept  on 
hand,  though  there  was  no  work  for  them  to  do,  simply 
because  later  on  they  would  be  wanted.  So  that 
instead  of  putting  the  undertaking  on  a  firm  basis,  the 
funds  were  again  being  frittered  away.  The  foreigner 
withdrew,  and  the  evangelist  had  the  pleasure  of  posing 
as  a  martyr  financially. 

In  most  cases  it  does  not  end  so  simply,  and  there  are 
misunderstanding  and  enmity — for  the  Japanese  is  the 
most  obstinate  creature  in  the  world.  He  is  absolutely 
unyielding  in  his  adherence  to  "Japanese  way"  as  the 
summum  bonum  of  human  ingenuity. 


134  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

The  Kobe  business  man,  especially  during  the  war,  had 
so  completely  changed  his  color  as  to  have  become 
unrecognizable  according  to  the  categories  of  the  special- 
ists in  Japanese  traits  and  characters.  Brask,  impu- 
dent, offensive,  he  treats  the  foreigner  with  contempt, 
except  where  he  finds  it  more  advantageous  to  be  polite. 
Clerks,  waiters,  tramcar  conductors,  and  station  boys 
all  co-operate  with  the  trader  to  show  the  foreigner  how 
little  they  respect  him  and  how  contemptuous  they  can 
be.  This  refers  to  the  Kobe  people  mainly.  The  con- 
sensus of  foreign  opinion  will  bear  me  out.  Kobe  is  the 
narikin  of  Japanese  cities,  the  upstart  of  ports  for 
ocean  traffic.  And  the  Japanese  people  themselves  will 
speak  in  this  vein  of  the  Kobeite. 

It  is  hard  to  be  consistent  in  one's  averages  of  national 
traits.  I  wander  about  in  a  maze  of  perceptions  and 
leanings.  How  can  one  condemn  with  sweeping  state- 
ments whole  peoples,  or  praise  them  without  equal 
qualifications?  You  come  upon  certain  individuals,  and 
their  gentleness,  the  pleased  expressions,  and  curious 
glances  sweep  away  all  mistrust  and  doubt.  Buy  a 
cake  and  come  back  for  more  and  you  find  that  you 
have  awarded  the  maker  a  gold  medal  which  she  wears 
quite  modestly  on  her  heart.  The  old  man  who  spends 
his  days  up  to  late  hours  sharpening  a  crude  blade  which 
comprises  the  Japanese  razor  is  pleased  and  happy  that 
I,  a  foreigner,  buy  one  from  him  for  fifteen  sen  instead 
of  ten,  which  he  would  have  asked  of  a  fellow-citizen  of 
his.  Thus,  here  and  there  one  touches  the  communal 
nerves  of  the  nation. 

The  individual  craftsman  or  tradesman  is  no  more 
variable  and  communal  than  is  the  manual  day  laborer. 
The  spirit  underlying  the  labor  situation  in  Japan  is  the 
same  for  the  industrial  worker  as  it  is  for  the  family 
shopkeeper. 

As  yet  the  ist  of  May  has  found  no  echo  in  Japan. 


NO  LABOR  DAY  135 

As  far  as  labor  is  concerned,  it  seems  barely  to  have 
emerged  from  feudalism.  Go  through  one  of  the  great 
dockyards  if  you  wish  to  see  this  same  clinging,  swarm 
activity  in  full  swing.  Division  of  labor  along  paths 
at  right  angles  is  still  wanting.  There  seems  to  be  no 
order,  no  plan,  no  arrangement,  just  a  mass  of  workers, 
each  attacking  a  job  with  the  instinct  of  the  ant  and  bee. 
The  men  move  amid  the  scraps  and  skeleton  construc- 
tions without  obvious  ordering,  as  though  without  duties. 
Food-venders  with  their  baskets  sit  at  ease  behind  their 
products  in  and  about  the  works.  The  crowds  about 
them  reach  for  the  buns  and  bean-cakes,  pay  their  sen 
or  two,  and  lounge  as  they  munch  them. 

But  they  turn  out  the  work.  No  seeming  outward 
struggle,  yet  the  work  is  done.  Ships  stood  about,  un- 
finished skeletons,  their  destiny  written  on  paper  and 
their  hour  of  completion  as  certain  as  childbirth.  The 
calm,  indifferent,  almost  lazy-looking  workmen  filled 
every  rib-space  and  alley,  an  atmosphere  of  patient, 
catlike  watchfulness  permeating  all.  Some  of  these 
days  they  will  go  on  strike,  thought  I,  and  Japan  will 
throw  off  cheap  labor  as  it  did  serfdom — and  the  world 
will  marvel. 

One  thing  more  than  all  else  tends  to  perpetuate  cheap 
labor  and  its  consequent  degradation  of  Japan,  and 
that  is  the  female  coolie.  Not  until  Japan  raises  the 
status  of  its  women  can  she  hope  to  be  taken  into  the 
comity  of  nations  as  an  equal.  No  standard  is  so  much 
in  need  of  improvement  as  that  of  the  woman  in  Japan. 
Doubtless  were  the  women  of  Japan  more  the  equals  of 
their  men  in  political  and  social  life  such  sights  as  women 
laborers  driving  stakes  into  the  ground  would  not  be 
seen.  Fixed  to  an  improvised  tripod  was  a  pulley  from 
which  hung  an  iron  weight.  About  fourteen  women 
and  one  meek,  lost  male  stood  off  in  a  broken  circle, 
each  gripping  a  straw-rope  end.  One  of  the  lot  chanted 


136  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

some  song,  in  a  not  unpleasant  voice,  and  when  she 
finished  they  all  pulled  on  the  ropes,  repeating  the 
chantey  and  dropping  the  weight  upon  the  pile.  Their 
voices  were  not  laden  with  complaint.  They  seemed  to 
think  little  of  the  meanness  of  their  lot,  for  their  faces 
showed  no  signs  of  worry.  It  seemed  as  though  they 
thought  more  of  the  blessing  of  this  one  arrangement  at 
least — that  the  song  could  not  be  denied  them  and  that 
it  lifted  them  beyond  the  sphere  of  their  twice-weighted 
existence.  And  gradually  the  stake  went  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  earth. 

One  cannot  feel  sad  for  them,  for  they  do  not  seem  to 
feel  sad  for  themselves.  Yet  I  could  not  but  wish  for 
some  other  arrangement.  Faces  broken  up  with  sores 
and  eruptions,  their  spirit  was  yet  satisfied  with  a 
simple  chant.  So  they  worked  half  a  century  ago 
pulling  on  a  rope  made  of  their  own  black  hair,  lifting 
the  pillars  of  a  magnificent  temple  from  whose  highest 
rewards  they  were  excluded. 

American  women,  so  bold  and  self-assertive,  claiming 
equal  rights  with  men  in  every  walk  of  life — why,  they 
are  dolls  and  darlings  compared  with  these  self-effacing 
little  creatures,  who  toil  away  at  the  most  arduous 
tasks  and  accomplish  that  for  which  we  have  devised 
monster  machines,  simply  because  our  women  wouldn't 
do  them  for  us.  It  seems  that  women  became  lazy 
in  the  old  matriarchal  period,  and  began  to  goad  men 
on  to  doing  things  for  them.  Having  been  filled  with 
dream-tales  from  their  cradles  up,  taught  to  worship  and 
reverence  womankind,  and  gradually  fooled  into  using 
their  minds,  men  invented  all  sorts  of  contrivances  in 
order  to  get  out  of  the  doing  of  heavy  things  which 
mother  diplomat  used  to  do  for  them. 

But  not  so  in  Japan.  Here  the  woman  still  sub- 
mits to  being  man's  machine.  She  is  everything  from 
mother  to  manufacturer.  But  I  see  a  gleam  of  hope. 


THE  CLAN  SPIRIT  137 

Though  she  is  not  above  being  his  equal  in  every 
task,  still  I  have  seen  her  follow  the  little  cart  her 
virtuous  spouse  was  pulling,  with  one  hand  on  the  load, 
the  other  holding  a  silk  parasol  over  herself.  And  al- 
ready her  little  daughter  proves  herself  the  future  woman 
of  a  free  Japan,  for  she  trudges  along — 'twould  never  do 
not  to  be  along — without  even  a  finger  on  the  burden. 

Again  the  family!  One  can  never  get  away  from  it. 
What  need  is  there  of  unions  when  life  is  knit  so  closely 
by  ties  of  blood,  when  whole  families  form  the  foundation 
for  all  corporate  activities  ?  The  ramifications  are  even 
more  far-reaching  than  that.  Not  only  are  gilds  a  part 
of  modern  industrial  Japan,  but  even  the  clan  has  sur- 
vived the  change.  Perhaps  it  is  because  there  still  are 
so  few  trusts,  but  to  be  an  employee  of  one  of  the  big 
firms  is  like  having  been  a  servant  or  samurai  or  re- 
tainer. Workmen  cling  to  their  managers  and  bosses 
with  the  spirit  of  the  serf  or  samurai — whatever  the 
latter  may  have  been.  When  asked  how  late  he  works, 
Mr.  Nippon  is  just  as  likely  to  say  that  he  and  all 
employees  wait  around,  even  though  they  have  nothing 
to  do,  till  the  manager  leaves,  though  that  be  nine 
o'clock  in  the  evening  and  they  really  should  have 
closed  at  six.  Strange  this  clinging  to  a  leader!  It  is 
the  starch  of  Japan.  It  is  seen  even  in  the  schools, 
where  good  and  earnest  students  will  "cut"  with  the 
whole  class,  though  they  may  much  prefer  to  come  and 
do  their  work.  And  even  when  some  do  come  and  find 
the  other  students  have  absconded,  they  will  ask  that 
inasmuch  as  the  rest  have  decided  to  play  false  to  their 
school  bargain — attendance — they,  too,  be  marked 
absent  or  all  be  marked  present. 

The  spirit  of  the  clan  or  of  the  class  finds  its  finishing 
touches  somewhat  marred  in  the  end  by  a  fundamental 
weakness  of  which  it  is  never  conscious  as  class  or  clan — 
a  weakness  resulting  in  inefficiency,  because  more 


138  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

willing  to  have  a  thing  done  within  the  clan  and  done 
poorly  than  to  send  it  out  and  have  it  done  by  a 
specialist.  Thus  you  find  an  unwillingness  to  go  out  of 
the  family,  as  it  were,  with  tasks  for  which  the  family  is 
not  quite  fit.  And  that  element  of  push — which  has 
been  the  making  of  Japan — is  side-tracked  by  the 
element  of  cohesion  which  nearly  ruined  it. 

One  reason  why  Japanese  are  failures  as  linguists  is 
because  they  are  too  proud  to  yield  the  honors  to  a 
foreigner,  really  to  listen  and  learn.  And  though 
individuals  and  firms  could  easily  secure  corrections  in 
their  correspondence  and  circulars  and  labels,  they  will 
issue  absurdities  such  as  the  following  rather  than  call 
in  one  who  is  not  of  their  clan  or  nation. 

The  first  is  by  a  zealous  student. 

Gacific  Mail 

Steam  Ship  Co.,  Ltd., 
DEAR  SIR, 

Will  you  please  excuse  this  short  note.  For  goodness'  sake  if  you 
please,  please  send  me  that  all  kinds  of  advertisement. 

The  other  two  are  from  the  now  proud  and  independent 
firm,  too  eager  for  spoils  and  applause  to  seek  assistance 
in  English  from  the  ignorant  foreigner. 

Sir,  Hereby  we  beg  to  report  to  you  a  marine  accident  as  follows: 
Toward  the  evening  of  ...  the  heavy  storm  raging  in  the  harbor  since 
the  daylight  of  the  fatal  day,  gradually  changed  into  a  southerly  one 
with  still  more  violent  force,  and  in  the  meantime  the  rough  sea 
became  heavier  and  heavier,  until  angry  sea  water  dashed  to  the 
Customs  compound  forcing  its  way  over  the  quay  wall. 

Every  effort  for  checking  the  sea  water  was  done  in  vain  and  it 
flooded  over  No.  i  Quay  with  the  result  that  the  cargoes  lying  there 
as  per  attached  lists  sustained  damage. 

Now  this  is  a  classic.  It  is  dramatic  and  really  good 
English,  but  when  you  learn  that  it  is  only  a  sea  protest 
and  meant  to  demand  reparation  in  coin,  and  not  tears, 


AN  INCIPIENT  POET  139 

for  a  couple  of  hundred  yen's  worth  of  goods,  you  will 
forgive  the  laughter  it  provoked. 

Particulars  of  the  Accident:  On  the  2gth  of  August,  1917,  while  the 
aforesaid  lighter  was  taking  in  at  the  starboard  side  of  the  steamer, 
the  cargo  ex  the  ss  Colusa  moored  along  the  No.  i  Quay  wall  of  the 
Kobe  Customs,  the  Easterly  wind,  which  was  blowing  since  the 
morning,  unexpectedly  began  to  assume  more  violent  force,  making 
the  sea  quite  rough. 

During  the  heavy  sea,  the  said  lighter  was  laboring  very  hard  and 
was  often  compelled  to  collide  against  the  steamer's  side,  with  the 
result  she  sustained  damages  to  her  body,  there  from  the  sea  water 
ran  into  the  lighter. 

Seeing  the  dangerous  state  of  the  lighter,  the  lightermen  engaged 
themselves  to  check  and  ladle  out  the  water  and  at  the  same  time  our 
steam  launches  hurried  to  the  spot  of  the  accident  and  cooperated 
in  pumping  out  the  water  running  in,  towing  the  ill  fated  lighter 
toward  the  nearest  quay  wall  in  order  to  salve  her.  But  on  her  way 
thereto  the  salvage  work  being  of  little  effect,  the  said  lighter  became 
full  of  water  and  in  consequence  met  the  fate  of  sinking  to  the  sea 
with  all  her  cargo  at  the  middle  part  (120  feet  off  the  Quay  wall) 
between  No.  i  Quay  and  No.  2  Quay,  and  this  is  certified  to  by 
the  "Mayor  of  Kobe  City." 

Verily  a  poet  was  at  work  in  a  stevedoring  firm  at  the 
handsome  salary  of  thirty  dollars  a  month. 

I  cannot  close  without  a  special  word  for  a  type  of 
laborer  who  puts  all  clannishness  to  shame  with  his 
haughty  individuality,  the  symbol  of  independence  and 
the  free-lance  of  industrialized  bushidodom — the  rick- 
shaw man. 

For  him  there  is  progress  in  Japan.  How  the  disap- 
pointment and  regret  must  have  smouldered  in  the 
breast  of  the  old  rickshaw  man,  whom  his  foreign  em- 
ployers christened  Jimmy,  when  he  saw  about  him  the 
wealth  his  fellow-runners  were  piling  up  day  by  day  or 
heard  of  the  advancement  of  some  to  the  rank  of 
chauffeur.  He  had  been  for  fifteen  years  or  more  the 
runner  for  this  endogenous  firm.  He  was  a  pioneer,  a 
venturesome  fellow  seeking  new  worlds  to  conquer, 


I4o  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Now,  short  and  withered,  he  still  sparkled  with  surprise 
when  he  saw  his  former  boss.  Instantly  he  hurried 
round  the  counter  and  without  a  word  began  bowing 
and  bowing,  till  recognition  came  in:  "Hello,  Jimmy!" 
and  the  speaker  turned  to  his  equal  again. 

The  jinrikisha,  though  an  innovation  in  Japan,  invented 
by  a  missionary,  is  the  source  of  much  that  is  evil  being 
circulated  through  the  country,  and  also  of  not  a  little 
good.  The  rickshaw  man  it  is  who  panders  to  all  the 
vices,  knows  where  the  prostitutes  live  and  urges  his 
customers  to  patronize  them.  Yet  as  long  as  you  are  in 
his  "cab"  and  he  knows  you  know  his  number  or  knows 
that  your  friends  know  his  number,  you  are  safe  with 
him  in  any  part  of  the  city  at  any  hour  of  the  night. 
In  recent  days  foreign  women  have  quite  frequently 
been  treated  roughly  by  these  pullers,  but  an  easy  pre- 
caution is  letting  them  know  you  have  their  number. 
Every  one  being  registered  with  the  police,  none  can 
escape  punishment.  But  even  as  the  rickshaw  puller 
is  the  source  of  much  trouble,  he  has  been  the  doer  of 
some  good. 

He  figures  prominently  in  modern  literature  and  has 
even  been  involved  in  international  affairs.  In  the 
account  of  the  attack  made  on  the  life  of  the  young 
Russian  Czar  while  he  was  visiting  Japan  in  1891, 
written  by  a  popular  story-teller  of  Tokyo  and  pub- 
lished in  English  in  The  Japan  Chronicle  (January  i, 
1919),  the  following  interesting  reference  to  the  two 
coolie  rickshaw  pullers  is  made: 

As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  really  the  coolie  who  was  pulling  the 
Czarevitch's  vehicle  who  ait  at  the  offender;  but  in  the  above  tele- 
gram it  was  reported  as  having  been  done  by  the  police  inspector 
who  was  at  the  head  of  the  procession.  The  error  was  subsequently 
rectified;  but  just  imagine  how  panic-stricken  the  prefectural  author- 
ities must  have  been  to  have  mistaken  a  jinrikisha  man  for  a  police 
inspector! 


RICKSHAWISMS  141 

And  Mr.  Basil  Hall  Chamberlain,  in  his  Things  Jap- 
anese, says  that  they  "were  forthwith  almost  smothered 
under  the  rewards  and  honors  that  poured  down  upon 
them,  alike  from  their  own  sovereign  and  from  the 
Russian  court.  One  of  them  unites  virtue  to  good  fort- 
une; the  other  has  given  himself  over  to  riotous  living. 
Such  is  the  way  of  human  nature,  and  the  coolie  is  as 
human  as  the  rest  of  us." 

But  the  Japanese  reverence  for  imperialism  is  biased; 
for  once,  it  is  rumored,  a  rickshaw  man  stumbled,  and 
his  mate  put  out  his  hand  and  clutched  at  the  noble 
lady  sitting  in  the  "riki,"  saving  her  from  hurt.  He  was 
forthwith  cut  down  by  an  officer,  who  thus  put  the  seal 
on  the  inferiority  of  the  rickshaw  man,  a  creature  too 
vile  to  touch  the  person  of  nobility. 

In  clear  weather  and  when  I  knew  my  way,  I  cursed 
and  despised  the  jinriki;  when  I  was  a  stranger  or  when 
it  was  raining,  I  thought  there  was  nothing  lovelier  in 
the  world.  I  have  enjoyed  talking  to  the  rickshaw 
man  more  than  to  many  of  the  other  Japanese  one  meets 
in  one's  movements  about  the  country.  He  has  a 
keener  sense  of  humor,  is  more  interested  in  you,  and 
tells  you  what's  what,  and  is  sometimes  quite  likable. 
Coming  up  the  hill  one  day,  a  coolie  a  little  distance 
ahead  of  me,  I  saw  an  act  of  co-operation  worth  telling 
about.  This  coolie  was  without  his  "cab,"  but  presently 
another  came  pulling  a  full  "bus."  The  burdenless 
coolie  stepped  up  and  without  a  word  added  his  strength 
to  that  of  the  other — to  the  latter 's  surprise.  And  the 
soft  patter  of  their  feet  seemed  to  say  "sh,  sh,  sh,"  to 
their  pleased  inner  selves. 

Rickshawdom  is  not  without  its  romantic  side. 
Down  the  street  ran  a  puller,  restraining  his  well -sped 
car,  his  knotted  triceps  seeming  doubly  hard.  His 
burden  was  a  fat,  round-faced  servant-girl.  Her  keen 
satisfaction  at  being  rushed  along  so  rapidly,  yet  con- 


i42  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

trolled  by  the  sturdy  little  man,  was  an  untold  tale  of 
romance. 

The  evil  side  of  rickshawism  is  commensurate  with 
Japan's  westernization.  The  cost  of  living  rising,  the 
coolie  pokes  his  nose  out  of  his  timidity.  He  has  become 
as  independent  as  one  dares  to  be  in  Japan,  and  just  as 
impertinent.  His  prices  range  from  extortion  to  high- 
wayism.  And  if  you  are  a  resident  and  he  knows  he 
cannot  frighten  you,  he  boycotts  you  for  your  daring. 

Once,  after  giving  vent  to  a  few  lofty  humanitarian 
sentiments  in  compassion  for  the  miserable  condition  of 
the  rickshaw  man,  alias  kummayasan,  who  pulled  me 
up  the  hill,  I  felt  as  though  I  had  somewhat  lightened 
his  burden.  Why  should  he  pull  me?  I  asked.  And 
asserted  my  conviction  that  next  to  the  coolie  woman  he 
is  certainty  at  the  very  bottom  of  human  degradation. 
I  listened  to  the  sound  of  his  feet  as  they  splashed  in  the 
deep  slush  of  Kobe  streets,  and  to  his  heavy  breathing- 
all  the  while  sitting  comfortably  in  my  glory.  But  as 
soon  as  my  journey  was  over  I  asked,  "Ikura?"  and  was 
told,  ' '  Go-ju-sen ' '  (fifty  sen) .  I  knew  it  should  have  been 
ju-go-sen  (fifteen  sen)  and  said  so.  He  had  more  than 
doubled  his  price.  He  was  obstinate,  though  he  knew 
he  was  lying.  I  threatened  to  call  a  policeman.  Yet  I 
hated  to  appear  to  be  haggling  over  a  few  sen.  And  so 
often  enough  he  comes  out  the  gainer.  But  he  is  losing, 
you  reason,  for  if  he  charges  too  much  you  will  not  use 
him.  And  then  perhaps  rickshawism  will  cease  to  be  an 
obstacle  to  the  improvement  of  public  transportation 
and  public  roads.  And  the  puller  will  turn  to  active, 
productive  labor,  to  fields  in  which  he  will  rise  above 
the  degrading  position  of  being  a  human  horse. 

On  general  principles,  the  rickshaw  is  a  fraud.  On 
long  journeys  you  are  worn  out  worse  than  if  you  had 
walked.  The  "cab"  tilts  you  back  too  far,  the  jolting 
is  considerable.  Uphill,  speed  is  impossible;  downhill, 


POOR  IX  DETAIL,   EN  MASSE  THE  TEMPLE  MARRIES  SILENCE   WITH   MAJESTY 


AND    WHEN    THE    RAM    OVER    THE    STEPS    STRIKES    THE    BELL    WITHIN,    THE 
EARTH    TREMHLKS 


IF  YOU  WANT  ANYTHING,  DON  X  VOTE  FOR  IT,  ASK  THE  MECHANICAL  FORTUNE- 
TELLER 


DON'T  DEPOSIT  YOUR  BALLOT  IN  A  BOX — TIE  IT  TO  A  RAIL 


THE   DOOMED   RIKI  143 

it  is  dangerous.  Many  people  have  been  thrown  out 
and  hurt  or  killed.  And  you  are  always  quarreling 
with  your  "horse"  instead  of  petting  him. 

The  tram  has  done  not  a  little  to  drive  him  out  of 
commission,  and  will  certainly  do  so  much  more.  But 
in  modern  Japan,  with  its  reputation  for  efficiency,  the 
trams  and  the  trains  and  the  roads  and  the  telegraphs 
deserve  a  chapter  or  a  section  in  themselves. 
10 


IX 

THE    HEART    OF    JAPAN 

•HE  same  flexibility  of  temperament  which 
makes  of  labor  and  recreation  in  Japan 
such  helter-skelter,  though  utterly  human, 
activities,  predominates  in  the  religious 
festivals.  Viewing  it  from  the  outside,  one 
would  never  think  that  this  loose  display  of  the  com- 
munal instinct  was  at  the  same  time  an  individual  striv- 
ing for  conscious  improvement  of  self.  The  crowd  is 
no  more  unified  by  the  fact  that  it  has  come  to  pay  its 
respects  to  some  local  deity  than  by  attending  a  show  or 
building  a  ship.  Fact  is  that  if  that  show  represents  the 
spirit  of  loyalty  shown  by  the  Forty-seven  Ronin,  or  the 
ship  is  a  battleship  and  thus  represents  the  State,  the 
crowds  are  much  more  electrified.  This  has  led  emis- 
saries of  western  religions  to  condemn  the  Japanese  as 
unreligious,  and  certainly  they  are  so.  But  is  that  de- 
plorable? Only  in  so  far  as  it  leaves  the  unsuspecting 
individual  an  easy  prey  to  the  impositions  of  oligarchs 
does  it  prove  itself  a  detriment  to  human  development. 
When  the  Church  was  the  State  in  Europe,  the  human 
was  neglected  for  the  sake  of  the  spiritual;  with  the 
State  as  the  Church  in  Japan,  the  emotional  is  deadened 
to  the  advantage  of  the  political.  In  both  Church  and 
State  the  desire  for  the  material  is  predominant.  And 
to  that  extent  Japan  is  in  no  sense  different  from  the 
nations  and  peoples  of  the  West. 

Religion  in  Japan  presents  somewhat  of  a  paradox. 


NEW  YEAR'S  DAY  145 

There  is  Buddhism,  which  is  essentially  communalistic. 
There  is  Shintoism,  which,  politically  speaking,  is  rigidly 
individualistic  but  being  at  the  same  time  a  religion 
of  ancestor-worship,  it  is  definitely  pan-psychical,  taking 
all  the  world's  people  who  have  ever  existed  into  its 
embrace. 

Most  of  the  holidays  and  festivals  which  are  according 
to  Buddhist  rites  carry  with  them  a  well-defined  human- 
istic import,  but  they  are  pretty  generally  conducted  at 
a  distance  from  the  ordinary  floods  of  Oriental  life. 
The  great  majority  of  religious  celebrations  in  Japan 
are  Shintoistic. 

Chief  among  all  these  national  holidays  is  New  Year's. 
As  early  as  August  preceding  my  first  New  Year's  in 
Japan  the  wife  of  my  Japanese  friend  remarked,  when 
I  asked  her  what  she  did  for  amusement,  that  she  was 
looking  forward  to  the  coming  of  the  new  year.  At 
last  the  day — to  which  I  myself  had  come  to  look  for- 
ward with  interest  and  curiosity,  so  much  was  it  talked 
about — arrived,  only  to  prove  the  folly  of  anticipation. 
My  little  housekeeper  was  flushed  with  sake,  as  was  her 
servant,  who  stood  behind  her  adjusting  her  obi  for  her. 
It  was  barely  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  but  cele- 
bration begins  early  in  Japan.  It  begins  still  earlier,  as, 
for  days  numbering  a  week  before,  preparations  have 
been  in  full  swing.  Professional  mochi-  (rice  dough) 
makers  carry  their  stoves  and  mortars  and  heavy  mallets 
about  the  streets,  pound  their  special  rice  into  a  tough 
dough,  and  round  it  off  in  big  and  little  cakes,  pale  and 
round  as  the  moon.  Not  a  street  or  a  shop  in  which 
stocks  of  these  clots  of  rice  dough  do  not  lie  exposed 
for  sale;  and  not  a  house  so  poor  but  that  it  puts  in 
stocks  of  these  to  afford  weeks  of  overeating.  And  on 
the  day  he  who  has  not  put  in  sufficient  stocks  of  food 
to  weather  the  calm  of  indolence  or  storm  of  jollity 
which  grips  the  Empire  is  indeed  improvident, 


146  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

On  this  day  it  is  safe  to  say  every  city  in  Japan  is  the 
same,  a  sameness  which  makes  one  despair  of  human 
inventiveness.  Yet  if  ever  the  caterpillar  of  slow  and 
unending  endeavor  is  metamorphosed  into  the  ephemera 
—the  momentary  butterfly — if  ever  a  world  is  changed 
from  being  real  simon-pure  to  Utopia,  Japan  does  that 
"trick"  on  New  Year's  Day.  A  world  which  is  never 
at  rest,  a  world  which  is  sweating  with  long-drawn-out 
labor,  a  world  which  sleeps,  eats,  and  talks  at  toil — 
suddenly  throws  off  the  burdens  of  life  and  becomes  a 
flushed  lily  justifying  the  biblical  parable. 

The  New  Year's  breakfast  is  partaken  of  in  common. 
It  was  the  only  day  on  which  I,  a  stranger,  was  ever 
asked  to  join  the  Japanese  at  a  meal  in  common  with 
them.  Everything  served  is  cold — ready  for  the  whole 
day's  eating — except  the  sake  (which  makes  them  drunk), 
and  the  mochi  soup,  which  is  the  delight  of  the  year. 
There  is  cold  lotus  root,  carrots,  gobo  (burdock),  kuro- 
mame  (black  beans),  konuyaku  (a  kind  of  edible  root), 
cold  omelet,  kuwae  (plant),  renkon  (lotus),  mochi  (stew), 
gomame  (dry  young  sardines  eaten  especially  on  New 
Year's  Day),  mitsuwazuke  (radish),  kobu  (seaweed),  fish 
and  egg  omelet,  dai,  satoimo,  daikon  (radish) ,  fish,  koya- 
dofu,  bodara  (fish),  ocha  (tea)  and  rice,  yomomi,  green 
plant  mixed  with  mochi — all  for  breakfast. 

Breakfast  is  followed  by  visiting.  The  men  start 
early,  dressed  in  their  very  best  silk  kimonos,  and  skirt- 
pantaloons  on  top — the  full-dress  of  Japan.  It  is  a 
fine-looking  world,  such  as  one  would  like  to  see  at  all 
times.  Each  visitor  among  the  men  carries  some  little 
present  or  just  his  card  (a  recent  innovation)  to  his 
friend,  acquaintance,  or  business  patron.  He  does  not 
remain  to  chat,  but  just  leaves  his  evidence  of  having 
presented  himself,  and  hurries  on  to  the  next  place. 
One  has  then  done  his  duty  and  friendship  is  sealed. 
The  girls  and  women  show  themselves  only  in  the  after- 


THE    TORI!    MAKES   THE    WILDERNESS    HUMAN    AND   THE    MONOTONOUS   CITY 

LOVELY 


I  REMEMBER  HOW  ALLURING  IT  ALL  WAS  AT  THE  TIME 


A  QUIET  REVELATION  147 

noon,  though  they  have  been  prepared  to  receive  callers 
from  early  morning.  They  appear  in  finery  gay  and 
exquisite  in  the  extreme,  a  blaze  of  color  which  makes 
Japan  the  admiration  of  the  world. 

Even  in  the  early  hours  there  is  considerable  evidence 
of  sake-drinking ;  but  toward  noon  and  in  the  afternoon 
flushed  faces  tell  that  the  exchange  of  cordialities  has 
been  made — not  in  greetings  alone,  but  in  hot  intoxi- 
cants. And  when  the  evening  comes,  lonely  indeed  is 
the  sober  man. 

There  is  one  man  in  all  Japan  who  does  not  know  the 
meaning  of  New  Year's  freedom.  All  others  have  for- 
gotten what  it  is  to  toil.  To  one  accustomed  to  seeing 
Japan  never  shut  to  trade  and  barter,  coming  out  on 
the  street  is  a  surprise  in  revelation.  The  wooden- 
shutter  doors  have  all  been  placed  across  the  store- 
fronts, and  long  curtains  with  the  family  crests  dyed 
upon  them  stretch  from  end  to  end  of  the  street.  Every- 
thing is  closed — except  to  visitors,  and  these  know  better 
than  to  stay. 

But  one  man  does  not  know  what  it  is  to  celebrate  in 
idleness.  True,  he  puts  on  clean  uniform  and  looks 
different,  but  he  pulls  his  rickshaw  just  the  same — aye, 
much  more  so.  He  makes  money  while  the  others 
spend  it;  he  toils  while  the  others  enjoy  themselves. 
True,  he  receives  unusually  large  tips;  true,  he  is  given 
sake  to  drink  and  often  has  a  difficult  time  trying  to  hold 
up  the  shafts;  true,  he  is  a  dangerous  puller  to  employ, 
but  most  of  the  patrons  are  themselves  too  drunk  to 
consider  such  trifles. 

Few  indeed  are  the  sleepers  that  night.  Eat,  drink, 
and  be  drunk  is  the  motto.  The  women  manage  to 
keep  themselves  more  sober,  though  they  would  not  turn 
down  a  full  glass.  Many  of  them  play  the  national 
woman's  card  game  for  petty  cash  all  night  through. 

But  the  rickshaw  puller  pulls  all  night  through — if  he 


i48  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

can  stand  on  his  legs.  For  him  there  is  no  rest.  He 
typifies,  more  than  any  other,  the  coolie.  He  is  the 
dregs.  The  rain  may  pour,  the  world  may  rejoice — he 
alone  cannot  do  so  except  in  snatches.  For  even  in 
modern  Japan  he  keeps  the  world  moving. 

Most  other  national  holidays  in  Japan  are  little  more 
than  signal  for  the  display  of  the  flag.  What  they  are 
holidaying  over  is  often  hard  to  tell ;  reference  to  history 
alone  would  do  so.  In  the  manner  and  form  there  is 
generally  nothing  distinctive,  and  the  impressionist 
responds  but  coldly.  One,  I  was  told,  was  a  kind  of 
Thanksgiving  Day.  The  streets  were  ablaze  with  the 
flag — a  round  red  disk  (like  the  announcement  of 
skating  at  the  parks)  against  a  cold  white  background. 
Were  the  symbol  taken  literally  it  would  be  a  case  of 
rich  and  throbbing  Japan  in  a  world  of  icy  nothingness. 
It  is  the  symbol  of  Shintoism.  Aside  from  these  emblems 
fixed  to  bamboo  poles  with  black  bands  painted  round 
them  two  or  three  inches  apart — the  poles  are  tied  to 
doors  and  fences,  in  front  of  each  and  every  worthy 
household — there  is  no  sign  of  festivity.  Stores  are  all 
open  just  as  usual,  labor  is  just  as  incessant.  Idle 
rambling  leads  me  past  a  shrine.  What  a  pagan  mixt- 
ure—  pagan  in  the  absolute  sense  of  the  word.  Be- 
neath the  shadows  of  the  edifices,  within  the  walls 
protecting  gods,  petty  traffic  continues.  What  a  medley 
of  modernism  and  mysticism,  of  business  and  prayer! 
Yet,  in  spite  of  our  preconceived  notions  and  prejudices, 
one  cannot  but  admire  this  Oriental  frankness.  Life,  a 
struggle  for  existence  at  best,  is  a  business  matter,  and 
religion  should  merely  facilitate  it.  What  need  of 
offering  grace  over  daily  bread?  Its  possession  is  proof 
enough  of  blessing. 

I  do  not  know  how  it  was  managed,  whether  the  in- 
creased sales  were  shared  partly  with  the  priests  or 
instigated  by  them  alone.  One  thing  is  certain,  the 


TEMPLES  AND  TRADE  149 

grounds  in  and  before  Ikuta  jinsha,  once  bare  and 
deserted  except  for  the  occasional  visitor,  were  suddenly 
beset  with  booths  and  stocked  and  crowded  to  an  amaz- 
ing extent.  Buying  and  selling  and  auctioneering  went 
on  at  a  wild  pace.  The  cheapest  sort  of  trash  found  its 
eager  customer;  the  most  alluring  picture,  its  admirers. 
Miniature  show-houses,  into  which  one  gazed  through 
large  lenses,  had  themselves  called  to  attention  in  the 
most  interesting  manner.  At  one  table  on  a  platform 
beside  the  door  sat  a  woman,  at  the  other  a  man. 
Each  drummed  upon  the  table  with  two  thin  reeds  in  a 
most  monotonous  way.  Dull  though  it  was,  it  took 
possession  of  you,  the  tripping  taps  affecting  one  as  did 
Mark  Twain's  "Punch  Brother,  punch.  Punch  with  care. 
Punch  in  the  presence  of  the  passenger."  It  possessed 
an  indefinably  subtle  force  which  held  you  and  made  it 
pleasing. 

This  buying  and  selling  is  the  life  of  shrine  and  temple. 
It  is  amazing  to  see  the  trash  being  manufactured  so 
extensively  in  Japan.  There  is  buying  and  tasting,  and 
examining  without  either  buying  or  tasting,  all  along 
the  street  leading  to  the  shrine.  The  crowd  thickens. 
Movement  is  almost  impossible.  You  are  within  the 
confines  of  the  shrine  grounds.  Hundreds  of  bowed 
heads,  clapping  hands,  and  intaking  breaths  make  of 
that  inanimate  shrine  with  its  sealed  doors  a  living 
reality.  The  coins  clink  as  they  strike  the  wooden 
grating  across  the  top  of  the  huge  box — one,  two,  three, 
hundreds.  Vast  sums  are  thus  collected,  and  the  instinct 
of  hope  and  desire  satisfied. 

I  stood,  the  night  of  that  autumn  festival,  waiting  for 
a  friend,  leaning  slightly  against  the  pillar  of  the  large 
stone  torii.  Behind  this  same  column  a  thin-voiced  toy- 
balloon  vender  had  taken  his  stand.  His  voice  was  not 
more  pleasing  than  the  sound  of  the  whistling  rubber 
balloons.  But  when  one  of  them  burst  and  he  gave 


ISO  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

vent  to  an  undertone  of  indignation,  his  poverty,  more 
than  his  anger,  had  found  utterance. 

The  seventy-odd  years  of  human  life  were  here  each 
well  represented.  No  one  had  stayed  at  home.  They 
passed  before  me,  some  noticing  the  stranger,  some  not, 
all  moving  with  a  listlessness  verging  on  habit.  What 
was  there  to  lure  them?  Surely  it  could  not  have  been 
for  famish  of  trade.  In  no  place  in  the  world  do  people 
live  so  utterly  under  the  influence  of  barter.  Stores 
never  close  but  when  this  world  is  asleep,  and  bargains 
are  always  being  offered.  One  is  always  buying  bar- 
gains. Morning,  noon,  and  night,  day  in  and  day  out, 
from  year  to  year  they  have  this  opportunity,  and  this  is 
but  a  flood  of  the  same  exchange.  Wares  which  have 
been  hidden  away  in  the  dark  corners  of  the  little  shops 
find  themselves  out  under  the  open  sky,  on  inclined 
stands  sloping  to  the  ground.  The  wooden  shutters 
which  form  the  front  walls  of  all  shops  disappear  with 
the  sunrise. 

What  is  it,  then,  which  moves  this  mass  that  cannot 
be  roused  by  other  promptings?  An  idea?  Perhaps. 
But  that  idea  seems  of  its  own  accord  incapable  of  ap- 
pealing, and  must  be  clothed  in  the  garb  of  exchange, 
set  in  a  background  of  things  instinct  in  the  human  race. 
Men  seem  to  be  timid  in  giving  expression  to  even  uni- 
versal failings  in  the  far-off  East. 

The  very  shrine  itself  is  dedicated  to  the  deity 
Wake-hime-no-mikoto,  sometimes  called  the  Japanese 
Minerva,  for  she  taught  the  Japanese  the  use  of  the 
loom  and  introduced  clothing.  It  was  founded,  legend 
says,  by  the  Empress  Jingu  Kogo,  mother  of  the  God  of 
War,  Hachiman,  on  the  occasion  of  her  stay  in  Kobe 
en  route  to  Korea,  which  she  had  set  out  to  conquer. 

What  is  characteristic  of  special  festival  occasions  is 
in  a  lesser  degree  characteristic  of  temples  and  shrines 
in  general.  The  other  famous  Shinto  shrine  in  Kobe, 


THE  GEOMETRY  OF  CROWDS  151 

or,  to  be  exact,  in  the  old  city  of  Hyogo,  now  part  of 
Kobe,  is  extremely  modern.  It  is  dedicated  to  the 
arch-loyalist  of  Japan,  Kusunoki  Masashige,  who  had 
given  his  life  in  defense  of  the  Emperor  Go-Daigo,  the 
unfortunate,  when  struggling  against  the  strangling  hold 
of  the  Ashikaga  shogun.  After  the  revolution  in  Japan 
in  the  last  century,  Shintoism  was  inflated  by  bureau- 
cratic processes,  and  this  temple  was  reared  over  a  grave 
neglected  for  five  hundred  years.  It  is  now  one  of  the 
most  favored  temples  in  Japan. 

Immediately  to  the  right  of  the  entrance  to  this 
shrine,  which  is  surrounded  by  a  great  wall,  is  a  deep 
well  beside  a  fountain  in  a  flat  stone.  The  buckets 
used  for  drawing  the  water  are  like  any  old-fash- 
ioned buckets,  but  the  tiny  wooden  cups  and  long 
handles — these  are  Japanese.  A  little  farther  on  is  a 
simple  shrine.  In  these  grounds  one  must  put  aside 
thought  of  guides ;  each  must  see  for  himself  and  find  his 
own  inspiration.  There  is  nothing  either  beautiful  or 
complex,  but  there  is  something  new  —  a  massive 
turtle  resting  on  a  stone  foundation,  carrying  upon  his 
back  a  marble  slab.  As  a  symbol  of  ease  and  longevity 
it  is  not  a  mean  conception. 

A  little  farther  on  to  the  right  stands  a  most  im- 
maculate-looking building.  Here  we  are  met  with  a 
most  gracious  invitation  to  enter — boots  and  all.  It  is  a 
museum  of  modern  sabers  and  ancient  armor,  old  inscrip- 
tions and  recent  maps,  a  jumble  of  things  past  and 
present.  No  nation  escapes  either,  nor  does  the  visitor, 
as  he  leaves,  escape  being  asked  to  contribute.  We 
have  been  looking  at  the  relics  once  the  pride  of  loyal 
Masashige — now  plain  Nanko. 

Wending  one's  way  across  the  trodden,  grassless 
ground,  past  rice-cake  bakers  and  roasted-red-bean 
venders,  we  come  upon  a  circular  crowd.  Now  I  don't 
know  whether  it  has  ever  occurred  to  any  one,  but 


152  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

crowds  have  their  geometrical  propensities.  If  you  see 
a  circular  crowd,  always  be  sure  it  is  a  magician  of  some 
kind  or  the  Salvation  Army.  Circular  crowds  are 
always  of  a  safe  variety.  I'm  not  guaranteeing  any  one 
against  pickpockets,  but  against  the  crowd.  Circular 
crowds  are  a  sign  of  a  show  or  a  circus,  as  sure  as  cumulus 
clouds  are  a  sign  of  rain.  Conjurers  and  magicians 
(petty  and  political) — whether  in  the  presence  of  a  saloon 
or  holy  shrine  doesn't  matter — anything  with  money  for 
its  object  creates  a  circular  crowd.  This  is  universally 
true. 

How  about  square  crowds?  Square  crowds  are  less 
plastic,  less  generous.  They  must  be  confined  or  they 
will  dissipate.  You  generally  find  them  within  doors, 
well-seated,  orderly,  and  passive.  They  are  of  one 
mind — the  square-deal  mind — or  they  could  never  be 
maintained  as  crowd.  They  generally  know  before- 
hand what  they  come  for  and  make  sure  of  receiving  it. 
That's  what  is  meant  by  a  square  deal.  They  are  found 
at  lectures,  churches,  political  meetings,  and  reveal  the 
evenness  of  human  mentality,  its  conformity,  and  its 
monotonous  laxity. 

Then  we  have  oblong  crowds.  These  are  generally 
demonstrative.  Each  that  makes  up  one  such  wishes  to 
be  seen  and  so  lengthens  out  the  process.  No  crowding 
here.  In  oblong  crowds  every  one  feels  himself  a  master 
creator,  of  extreme  importance  and  attractiveness.  It 
doesn't  matter  whether  it  be  a  protest  or  a  funeral,  func- 
tions requiring  long  wind  and  long  faces  stretch  them- 
selves out  in  oblong  crowds. 

Triangular  crowds  are  always  being  harangued  by 
some  pseudo-savior.  They  must  have  a  leader,  a  go- 
between,  one  who  can  draw  upon  all  the  elements  of 
society  for  support.  He  must  be  sharp  and  able  to  cut 
an  opening  for  the  entering  wedge  of  the  crowd.  Such 
crowds  are  somewhat  dangerous,  as  collisions  are  likely 


THE  SHRINE  EXCEPTIONAL  153 

to  take  place,  or  else  there  would  be  no  reason  for  their 
existence  as  triangular,  ax-like  crowds. 

There  are,  of  course,  rhomboid  and  hexagonal  crowds, 
and  those  of  all  geometric  proportions,  but  that  takes 
me  on  into  the  intricacies  of  Shinto  tenets — and  there  I 
must  draw  the  line. 

The  crowd  I  saw  that  day  was  a  circular  crowd.  It 
was  quite  a  safe  kind,  being  then  so  close  to  a  real,  living 
god.  He  who  formed  it  was  rattling  away  to  old  women, 
idle  men,  and  children,  exhibiting  and  juggling  cards. 
For  shame,  Shinto!  The  day  was  a  dull  day,  and  all 
other  crowds,  except  that  before  the  man  splitting  open 
large  mussels,  were  not  in  action. 

At  the  extreme  end  I  came  to  the  shrine  exceptional. 
There,  amid  columns  and  images,  stand  two  bronze 
horses,  riderless  and  unsaddled.  They  might  even  be 
wild — but  they  are  ultra-modern.  Within  the  sacred 
of  sacreds  is  a  large,  obsolete  cannon.  Obsolete  and 
still  so  young.  Why,  it  can't  be  more  than  twenty 
years  old !  So  soon  to  be  supplanted !  What  a  mockery 
of  youth!  Yet  here  it  stands,  as  much  neglected  and 
useless  as  the  shrine  it  plays  at  protecting.  It  has  come 
from  the  country  of  the  Czar,  himself  now  obsolete. 
It  was  his  when  he  thought  fit  to  fight  the  Japanese. 
He  must  have  bought  it  from  American  or  English 
capitalists.  Will  they,  too,  become  obsolete  some  day  ? 

The  shrine?  No  worshiper  is  present.  Two  glass 
candle-cases,  a  wooden  box  large  enough  to  house  the 
contents  of  a  good-sized  mint,  with  wooden  bars  across 
the  V-shaped  top,  show  the  confidence  the  priests  have 
in  ancestor- worship.  Its  open  slits  call  for  contributions 
like  hungry  mouths.  Great  expectations!  Lighted 
candle  sheds  expose  to  ridicule  or  in  pride  the  donators. 

A  man  arrives,  purchases  a  red  candle,  lights  it, 
presses  it  on  to  the  nail-stand,  drops  a  coin  into  the 
"grave,"  and  approaches  the  shrine  to  pray.  And  while 


154  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

he  is  bent  forward,  drawing  in  his  breath  and  clapping 
three  times,  the  two  little  urchins  who  sell  candles  in 
the  stall  to  the  right  are  learning  their  lesson  in  heat  and 
sensitiveness  over  the  flame  of  another  candle.  Skeptics ! 
Sacrilegious  urchins !  One  actually  snuffs  out  the  flame  by 
placing  his  palm  over  it.  Scorched  but  hilarious.  Imps! 

All  the  while  the  old  man  draws  in  his  breath,  hissing, 
rising,  claps  three  times,  and  turns  to  the  left  and  round 
to  the  rear  of  the  shrine.  Again  he  claps  his  hands 
three  times,  again  squats  on  his  haunches,  mumbles  and 
draws  his  breath,  then  rubs  the  cheeks  of  his  seat  most 
exactly  and  according  to  form,  rises,  claps  three  times, 
and  proceeds  farther  round  to  the  front  again.  He  has 
circumscribed  the  shrine.  Here  again  he  formalizes, 
rises,  claps,  claps,  claps  before  a  stone  image  at  the  left, 
a  stone  image  at  the  right,  kneels  and  claps  as  he  passes 
out — absolved. 

A  young  girl  enters  the  inclosure.  For  her  no  need 
of  candles,  or  perhaps  she  can't  afford  any.  She  hurries 
through.  Perhaps,  being  female,  she  has  done  her 
share  of  mumbling,  thinks  that  deity.  Arc  there  not 
two  images  at  the  gate  wickedly  said  to  represent  male 
and  female,  the  former  with  his  lips  shut  tight  as  though 
impatient  and  anxious  to  say  something,  the  latter  with 
hers  wide  open — jabbering?  These,  it  is  rumored,  repre- 
sent the  differences  in  sex.  So  it  may  be  that  women 
are  enjoined  to  signs,  not  words,  in  prayer.  The  deity 
releases  them  without  verbal  confessions.  He  has  had 
enough.  Or,  let  us  give  our  better  halves  the  benefit  of 
the  doubt.  Being  so  virtuous  and  so  fair,  and  he  (the 
god)  being  a  male  Ancestor,  their  grace  and  beauty  are 
in  themselves  sufficient  to  obtain  his  blessings. 

We  move  still  farther  in,  nearer  the  divine  residence. 
But  to  us  the  gate  is  closed.  "The  god  lives  here," 
avows  an  enthusiastic  young  boy  priest.  He  shows  me 
the  cherry-leaves  and  paper  drapings  he  has  just  with- 


LARGE  WREATHS  OF  FLOWERS  FROM  THE  MOURNERS 


THE  WHITE  SHROUDS  OF  THE  LIVING  SEEMED  AN  EMIII.EM  OF  LIFE  IN  DEATH 


ENSHRINED  IN  TWILIGHT  155 

drawn  from  the  offering.  He  comes  out,  but,  though  he 
speaks  words  in  English,  he  cannot  catch  them  when 
spoken,  and,  lest  fury  seize  me,  I  leave.  He  grasps  my 
hand  most  fervently,  places  both  of  his  on  mine,  asks  me 
to  come  and  talk  to  him  in  English — and  we  part. 

Still  I  linger  within  the  walls.  The  moon  is  higher  in 
the  heavens,  the  nights  and  days  still  chill.  The  great 
gateway  to  Nanko  stands  as  no  forbidding  barrier,  but 
rather  as  an  open  invitation  to  me  to  slip  away  from 
worldly  ways.  I  have  little  time  for  institutions  as  such, 
but  there  is  a  longing  which  cannot  be  appeased  other  than 
in  the  quiet  seclusion  of  some  such  place  as  this.  Except 
for  the  hills,  there  is  hardly  a  place  in  all  lower  Kobe  out- 
side these  temple  grounds  possessing  so  much  as  a  tree. 

In  the  settling  silence  of  belated  evening  the  un- 
vibrant  sound  of  clapping  hands  announces  to  man  the 
utmost  adoration  of  some  simple  soul.  The  marble 
lanterns  with  diffused  lights,  like  sleepy  owls  waking  with 
the  darkness,  the  medley  of  relics,  some  shrieking  their 
importance  upon  an  inattentive  world — all  express  some 
phase  of  human  visioning.  The  flat-headed,  leaning, 
yet  ascending  evergreens,  said  to  symbolize  mortality, 
stand  gazing  heavenward.  Yet  nothing  is  immortal 
except  the  desire  of  living  creatures  to  be  so.  And  every 
such  desire  finds  its  expression  in  some  material  form, 
only  to  be  superseded  by  a  subsequent  ambition  which 
annihilates  it. 

The  whole  is  not  without  its  usefulness.  The  momen- 
tary glimpse  I  caught,  the  sense  of  loveliness  and  evening 
calm — if  none  other  ever  gained  a  fleeting  breath  of  con- 
solation from  it,  my  having  done  so  would  have  made  it 
worth  the  while  of  the  originator.  And  when  it  is  con- 
sidered that  millions  upon  millions  in  thousands  of  gener- 
ations have  believed  and  trusted,  mere  denial  seems 
futile.  Yet  missionaries  come  with  the  hope  of  obliterat- 
ing this  spontaneous  acceptation  for  a  "reasoned"  one— 


i56  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

hope  by  argument,  by  threat  and  condemnation  to 
swerve  this  Mississippi  so  that  their  wheat-fields  may 
supplant  the  others'  rice  swamps.  Sheer  numbers  alone 
should  convince  the  perpetrators  of  the  utter  impos- 
sibility of  success — unless  their  hearts  are  easily  satis- 
fied and  a  single  soul  secured  gives  them  contentment. 
Out  of  sixty  million,  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand 
have  been  converted. 

The  booths  and  stands  had  gathered  in  their  wares 
for  the  night.  All  these  bazaar  establishments  keep  up 
the  temple  exchequer.  This  passing  out  of  business 
left  the  atmosphere  more  hallowed.  Not  that  it  is  not 
good  to  trade  in  human  wants,  but  that  human  ways  so 
often  profane  that  trade.  And  there  it  makes  little 
difference  whether  in  God's  name  or  in  that  of  Satan, 
whether  in  the  Orient  or  Occident. 

Left  alone,  one  cannot  fail  to  sense  the  quality  obtain- 
ing. It  lies  beneath  the  glamour  of  human  adoration, 
the  clamor  of  human  barter,  even  beneath  the  ardency 
of  human  supplication.  The  temple  is  not  temple  when 
the  crowds  are  thickest,  for  then  it  seems  to  fail  as  temple. 
Rescued  from  this  malicious  grasping  after  gain  of  one 
form  or  another,  which  smothers  spirit,  the  place  breathes 
deep  and  draws  in  the  sweetness  of  repose.  Then  it 
emerges  in  all  its  sacred  tranquillity.  Then  the  creature 
hungering  for  contact  with  creation  achieves  it. 

I  looked  into  the  empty,  simple,  meaningless  shrines, 
passed  the  flickering  candles  of  men  too  busy  for  devo- 
tion, doing  it  by  proxy.  I  moved  among  the  numerous 
erections  set  to  represent  some  phase  of  human  want  or 
yearning,  and,  pagan  or  no,  I  gained  salvation  for  the 
moment.  It  was  not  the  kind  of  salvation  most  men 
seek.  It  was  more  of  a  salvation  from  self,  a  losing  of 
self  in  the  perfection — eternity.  It  was  a  saving  from 
unjust  contentiousness  and  contempt — a  salvation  from 
prejudice. 


X 

SHINTOISM,     OR     THE    COMMUNITY     OF    SOULS 

NE  is  not  long  in  Japan  before  he  sees  a 
funeral.  Soon  funerals  become  so  common 
that  one  pays  little  attention  to  them.  That 
I  should  become  a  party  to  one  almost  im- 
mediately after  landing  is  more  unusual.  I 
had  placed  myself  in  the  care  of  a  kurumayasan,  telling 
him  to  take  me  to  any  place  of  interest.  In  coolie 
fashion,  when  you  let  go  the  "reins,"  he  goes  home. 
The  only  place  he  thought  interesting  was  a  beer-hall, 
and  thither  he  proposed  to  carry  me.  When  he  found 
that  was  not  to  my  liking,  he  ambled  on  in  disgust,  but 
made  for  the  slums.  Then  I  had  my  first  vision  of 
Japan  as  it  is  and  as  I  would  it  were  not.  The  way 
led  toward  Kumochi,  a  district  of  Kobe  then  not  densely 
populated.  Presently  we  were  before  a  structure  of 
such  mean  appearance  that,  were  it  not  for  the  gathering 
within  its  fenced-in  yard,  I  should  have  thought  it  was  a 
neglected  shed.  But  the  crowd  within  interested  me. 
I  ordered  the  puller  to  draw  up.  He  was  well  enough 
content  to  drop  his  shafts  to  the  ground  and  let  me  step 
out,  seating  himself  on  the  footboard  and  looking  on.  I 
approached  the  gate  wondering  what  so  many  people 
could  be  doing  in  so  poverty-stricken  an  establishment, 
with  little  red-lacquered  four-wheeled  wagons  earning 
their  place  in  the  world  by  transporting  improvised 
Christmas  trees  from  the  homes  of  the  dead  to  their 
tombs.  No  one  stopped  me,  so  I  moved  quietly  on 


158  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

through  the  yard  and  into  the  shed.  The  bare  earth 
floor  left  no  doubt  that  mortal  dust  was  being  re- 
ceived again  to  the  dust  from  which  it  sprang.  But 
forward  in  the  center  of  the  shed  was  an  arrangement 
which  even  at  this  hour  seemed  to  struggle  against  the 
mere  return  of  dust  unto  dust.  It  was  a  collapsible 
altar  upon  which  now  stood  some  donations  of  food  such 
as  rice  dough  cakes,  and  an  incense-burner.  About  six 
feet  away  from  it,  in  the  very  center  of  the  room,  with 
his  back  to  us  at  the  door,  sat  a  priest  on  his  red-lac- 
quered folding-chair,  mumbling  away  in  a  stream  of 
pathetic  incantations.  Behind  him  stood  an  under- 
study, while  all  round  the  room  squatted  the  Japanese 
male  and  female  mourners.  I  noticed  that  only  the 
male  mourners  took  any  positive  part  in  the  performance. 
One  after  the  other  they  stepped  up  before  the  altar, 
turned  their  backs  to  the  priest  after  having  bowed  to 
him,  bowed  before  the  tables,  and  put  three  pinches  of 
ash  or  incense  into  the  burner,  and  passed  on.  The 
last  one  stepped  forward,  bowed,  and  then  opened  a 
large  scroll-like  paper,  and,  holding  it  out  straight  before 
him,  commenced  to  read  in  deep  monotones.  I  was  at 
first  somewhat  confused  as  to  the  real  nature  of  the 
ceremony  because  of  the  absence  of  evidence  of  mourning 
or  weeping.  The  mourners  looked  grave,  but  nothing 
more.  But  at  the  gate,  altogether  away  from  the 
room,  stood  a  rather  pretty  woman,  crying  pitifully. 
As  soon  as  the  last  rites  had  been  done,  the  whole  assem- 
blage broke  out  in  smiles  and  chatter — one  of  the  last 
smiled  before  the  altar — and  all  passed  out.  At  the 
gate  two  men  handed  each  an  envelope — even  me — and 
for  the  first  time  in  my  life  another's  dying  resulted  in 
my  good.  Opening  the  envelope,  I  found  two  sen  post- 
cards— and  nothing  more.  The  giving  of  presents  is  an 
integral  part  of  Japanese  life.  The  recipients  disap- 
peared in  all  directions,  and  I  moved  on  again,  having 


GRIEF  159 

seen  for  the  first  time  the  spirit  in  which  Japan  disposes 
of  its  dead. 

It  would  be  making  a  misstatement  to  say  there  was 
no  show  of  grief.  Japanese  do  grieve,  though  their  con- 
ceptions of  death  should  not  invoke  it.  Shintoism, 
without  being  the  vital  religion  in  the  life  of  the  people 
that  Buddhism  is,  nevertheless  lays  the  foundation  for 
emotional  calm  which  precludes  mourning.  There  is 
considerable  difference  of  opinion  as  to  whether  Shin- 
toism is  a  religion  of  nature  or  ancestor- worship,  and 
some  even  deny  that  it  is  at  all  a  religion.  But  it  seems 
that  in  the  matter  of  death  there  is  little  to  dispute,  for 
whether  the  Shintoist  says  that  the  soul  of  his  departed 
parent  or  relative  goes  to  dwell  with  the  myriads  of 
ancestors  gone  before,  or  whether,  worshiping  nature  and 
its  visible  forms  and  regarding  every  manifestation  of 
life  as  but  another  phase  of  these — his  attitude  would 
always  be  the  same.  Not  all  the  other  religions  in  the 
world  have  ever  been  able  to  remove  the  sorrow  of  the 
human  heart  over  the  loss  of  a  dear  one  through  death, 
not  even  the  Japanese.  Without  any  preconceived  no- 
tions about  which  is  right  and  which  wrong,  I  took  no 
little  interest  in  watching  the  Nipponese  in  this — what 
one  might  call  the  last  and  final  phase  of  his  communal 
life — and  recorded  impressions  just  as  they  occurred  to 
me  at  the  time. 

Thrust  thus  unexpectedly  into  the  very  midst  of  others' 
sorrowing  afforded  me  that  impersonal  aspect  of  death 
among  the  Japanese  which  leaves  one  somewhat  cynical, 
if  not  scornful.  The  artificial  flowers  and  trees,  the 
release  of  doves  trained  to  return  to  their  cages,  the 
distribution  of  insignificant  gifts  to  bereaved  and 
stranger  alike,  are  not  likely  to  impress  the  foreigner. 
But  it  does  not  take  much  to  awaken  that  kinship 
which  is  nearer  than  that  of  the  accident  of  marriage, 

if  the  wanderer  is  astir  in  the  land  unattached  to  his 
11 


160  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

own    notions.     That    kinship    was    born    one    Sunday 
afternoon  as  I  witnessed  the  passing  of  a  human  life. 

I  had  seen  him  walk  about  like  all  living  men.  He 
was  somewhat  more  striking  in  appearance  than  the 
usual  Oriental,  his  long  black  hair  projecting  upward  as 
though  electric  with  life,  and  his  quick  hands  carving 
simple,  decorative  lines  into  oak  panels  and  staircases. 
From  others  I  learned  that  he  had  been  the  one  who  had 
made  the  chair  for  the  coronation  ceremonies  of  the 
young  Emperor,  so  unusual  was  his  skill  and  artistry. 

But  he  had  acquired  his  weakness,  and  one  night,  the 
craving  finding  no  release  in  ordinary  sake,  he  mixed  it 
with  methylated  spirits.  Half  an  hour  after  laying 
aside  his  work  he  was  seized  with  convulsions  and  at  two 
in  the  morning  was  dead. 

I  saw  him  stretched  on  the  bare  mats  of  the  laborers' 
shack.  The  "funeral"  was  to  be  held  at  sundown.  In 
the  meantime  the  body  lay  in  the  sun-baked  shack, 
unloved  of  life.  Nothing  can  alter  custom.  Every- 
thing had  to  be  done  according  to  form.  The  tub-coffin 
was  brought;  his  stiffened  sinews,  just  a  few  hours 
before  so  light  and  easy,  were  broken  at  the  joints;  he 
was  doubled  into  a  sitting  position,  or  rather  into  that 
in  which  he  first  felt  the  quick  of  life  in  his  mother's  womb, 
placed  into  the  tub,  and  the  lid  closed  over  him. 

There  were  no  mourners.  It  was  not  known  where 
his  immediate  family  was;  he  had  evidently  deserted 
it.  I  have  never  seen  a  more  poverty-stricken  funeral, 
and  I  understood  how  proper  and  right  it  is  to  have  this 
seeing  off  of  the  dead  for  the  sake  of  the  living.  The 
tub  was  set  on  the  mats  near  the  forward  end  of  the 
platform-floor  typical  of  every  Japanese  hut.  The 
cover  was  tied  down  with  straw  rope,  some  odd  rags  and 
a  coat  thrown  over  all.  In  front  was  a  niggardly  supply 
of  incense,  a  chisel  belonging  to  the  dead,  and  the 
unfinished  bottle  of  sake. 


UNFINISHED  SAKE  161 

The  priest  came.  A  Buddhist  priest.  The  yellow 
surplice  thrown  across  his  left  shoulder  was  soiled  with 
age ;  the  brown  beads  crunched  against  one  another  as  he 
rubbed  them  between  his  withered  palms.  His  prayer 
rose  in  mumbled  monotones,  interwoven  with  the  sounds 
of  his  little  hammer  on  the  bell  (not  Poe's  bell).  A  few 
minutes  of  this  and  the  tortured  soul  was  admitted  to 
its  heaven. 

The  few  fellow-workmen  who  stood  about  were 
gloomy  of  aspect.  But  when  the  priest  rose  from  the 
nail-keg  on  which  he  had  been  sitting,  a  little  bustle  and 
laughter  gurgled  through  them.  A  woman  lit  a  tiny 
bonfire  to  purify  the  air,  and  scattered  a  few  handfuls 
of  salt  as  a  charm  against  further  tragedy  coming  to  the 
place.  The  two  and  only  pall-bearers  fastened  the  tub 
to  a  bamboo  pole,  covered  it  with  a  straw  mat  and  deco- 
rated it  with  a  few  branches,  and  moved  down  the 
hillside.  And  all  the  dead  man  had  to  comfort  his  dis- 
carded body  was  an  unused  bottle  of  sake  they  had 
placed  inside  the  tub. 

Has  he  gone  to  join  his  ancestors  and  be  a  soul  among 
souls,  or  is  he  still  the  carpenter  making  chairs  for  young 
emperors  in  that  land  of  living  dead  whom  the  living 
are  ever  earnestly  pursuing?  To  the  Japanese  it  is  not 
a  world  of  night,  but  a  real  hereafter,  peopled  with  pas- 
sionate beings  each  in  his  proper  place.  Though  super- 
stition hounds  them  round  this  spirit-hovering  world, 
their  future  world  is  as  simple  as  their  present  daytime 
sphere.  Is  it  accident  or  inherent  opposition  which 
reverses  our  lives  in  theirs?  Where  we  don  black,  they 
slip  our  shrouds  about  them  and  move  like  specters  be- 
tween the  borders  of  life  and  death. 

Thus  one  dark  night  long  after  ten  o'clock  a  number 
out  of  all  those  vast  perpetual  hordes  gathered  in  an 
attenuated  oblong  crowd  and  passed  along  the  river- 
bank  to  the  cremation  shrine.  The  white-garmented 


162  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

people  with  their  strange  banners  and  appurtenances, 
their  lanterns  swaying  in  the  breeze  or  throbbing  with 
the  steps  of  each  lone  carrier,  presented  a  quiet  spectacle 
not  unsuited  to  the  occasion.  The  passing  of  a  human 
life  out  of  the  sphere  of  human  interest  and  relationship 
seems  more  suited  to  darkness,  and  the  white  shrouds  of 
the  living  seemed  an  emblem  of  life  in  death.  It  seemed 
as  though  arranged  to  call  attention  to  things  living 
and  to  lose  things  dead  in  the  sleeping  blackness  of  the 
unknown.  You  were  aware  of  confidence  unshaken,  of 
life  sounding  its  own  triumph,  of  leaving  to  the  beyond 
and  the  night  the  mysteries  of  what  is  to  be. 

Arriving  at  the  shrine,  the  coffin  was  deposited  in 
state  and  the  simple  ceremony  commenced.  It  was  a 
dead  girl,  close  within  the  unpainted  palanquin  of  white 
wood,  with  its  carved  casing.  Koshi,  they  call  it,  or 
sacred  sedan-chair,  borne  on  the  shoulders  of  four  men. 
They  set  the  car  on  the  outside,  then  carried  the  coffin 
within.  The  bereaved  family  arranged  themselves  in 
rows  upon  the  mats.  The  dim  lights  cast  lurid  shadows 
over  the  chamber.  The  priests  chanted  their  rites, 
mournful,  yet  with  a  loftiness  to  which  human  regret 
the  world  over  rises  wherever  it  is  sincerely  felt.  Vision 
and  regret — the  two  idealisms  of  the  human  mind. 

One  by  one  the  mourners  dipped  their  fingers  into  a 
bowl  and,  picking  up  a  pinch  of  ash,  deposited  it  on  the 
incense-burner.  There  was  now  but  a  little  baby  left, 
and  its  mother  brought  it  forward  and  helped  it  through 
the  rite.  It  seemed  too  frightened  to  act,  but,  seeing 
nothing  hysterical  in  its  mother,  did  not  cry. 

When  the  scene  broke  up,  and  each  separate  entity 
which  we  term  human  passed  off  into  the  larger  shadows 
we  call  night,  it  seemed  I  had  walked  for  a  time  amid 
those  to  whom  the  passing  of  that  dead  had  left  them 
neither  fears  nor  fallacies  about  life. 

But  still  I  felt  that  as  far  as  these  people  and  their 


IS  THERE  NO  SORROW?  163 

attitude  to  death  was  concerned,  I  had  seen  but  the 
remnants  of  unsuppressed  emotion.  I  wanted  to  know 
what  was  going  on  down  in  their  hearts.  It  seemed  so 
unnatural  that  grief  should  conform  so  much  to  the  con- 
ventions ;  yet  I  could  not  believe  that  here  was  a  people 
whose  natures,  knowing  little  of  religion,  knew  less  of 
fear  of  death  and  sorrow.  The  most  vital  religions  in 
the  world  have  never  been  able  so  to  assure  mankind 
of  a  hereafter  as  to  alleviate  pain  of  loss  in  death. 

I  had  not  long  to  wait.  Through  a  Japanese  friend  I 
had  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  gentleman  whose  name 
I  must  mention.  Kitakaze  San  is  the  descendant  of  a 
family  with  a  quaint  history.  Emperor  Go-Daigo, 
known  as  the  Unfortunate,  tried,  in  the  year  1330,  to 
re-establish  his  prestige  as  Mikado  and  his  power,  lost 
to  the  Ashikaga  family  of  shoguns.  He  failed.  While 
trying  to  escape  from  Suma  (a  village  about  nine  miles 
from  Kobe,  on  the  Inland  Sea)  to  Kyoto,  his  imperial 
war-ship  was  hotly  pursued  by  the  usurper  general. 
Seven  loyal  Goshi  (samurai  who  lived  away  from  the 
castle  of  their  liege  lord  and  cultivated  the  land) ,  engaged 
in  business  in  Hyogo  (Kobe),  put  straw  on  a  ship,  set 
fire  to  it,  and  floated  out  with  the  north  wind  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  vessels  of  the  Emperor's  enemies.  The 
wind  carried  the  flames  across  to  the  others  and  set  fire 
to  them,  thus  affording  the  Emperor  time  to  escape. 
He  was  naturally  very  grateful  to  these  loyal  seven  who 
had  no  family  name,  and  therefore  gave  them  the  name 
of  Kitakaze  (kita  meaning  north,  and  kazo,  wind),  which 
they  have  used  ever  since.  Most  of  the  families  have 
become  extinct.  The  one  known  remaining  family  was 
that  to  which  my  friend  introduced  me.  And  even  they 
are  now  only  Kitakazes  by  adoption,  the  gentleman 
being  the  adopted  son  of  the  last  of  the  line. 

For  some  weeks,  whenever  I  came  to  visit,  I  found  the 
curtains  drawn  across  the  wide  doors  between  the 


164  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Japanese  section  and  the  foreign  room  now  so  common 
in  Japan.  One  day  I  was  informed  that  the  father 
Kitakaze  had  died.  All  along  his  illness  had  been 
shrouded  in  secrecy.  Arriving  at  the  house,  I  found 
the  lower  part — which  is  always  the  business  section — 
screened  off  so  that  all  material  interest  be  forgotten. 
My  friend  and  his  widowed  mother  came  down  to  see  a 
visitor  to  the  door.  Both  smiled  as  though  nothing 
unusual  had  occurred,  yet  smiles  clearly  devoid  of 
happiness.  They  asked  if  I  would  care  to  come  up- 
stairs, and  led  the  way.  The  foreign  room  was  now 
severely  orderly,  and  the  curtains  drawn  aside.  An 
enlarged  photograph  of  the  dead  man  was  placed  upon  a 
table  and  I  was  introduced  with,  "This  is  my  father." 
In  the  Japanese  room  stood  the  coffin,  draped  with  a 
gilt-embroidered  red-silk  spread.  The  bier  had  been 
arranged  before  the  household  shrine,  which  now  was 
wide  open  for  the  reception  of  the  spirit  of  the  dead. 
The  glittering  brasses  and  brilliant  covering  eliminated 
all  solemnity  from  the  scene. 

The  son  dropped  to  his  knees  so  quickly  that  I  thought 
for  a  second  his  strength  had  left  him.  In  absolute  si- 
lence he  prayed;  then  rose,  drew  two  sticks  of  incense, 
lighted  them,  set  them  in  an  incense-burner,  struck  a  bell 
three  times,  and  made  way  for  me.  I  went  through  the 
rites  certainly  with  no  thought  of  scorn  or  criticism. 
Whatever  the  form  or  belief,  the  obvious  stoical  suppres- 
sion of  grief,  so  heroically  borne,  was  too  real  to  be 
subjected  to  questionings.  And  yet  there  was  no  sad- 
ness. The  smiles  amazed  me.  But  I  learned  that  they 
were  too  excited  to  weep  during  all  the  preparations, 
but  that  after  all  is  over,  the  widow  will  sleep  on  a 
bed  instead  of  the  floor-mats,  and  will  relax  into  the  long- 
suppressed  and  much-desired  spell  of  weeping  which 
lasts  two  weeks. 

The  body  was  cremated,  and  the  funeral  services  were 


VISION  AND  REGRET  165 

held  on  the  following  Sunday.  On  Saturday  I  visited 
the  home  of  our  common  friend.  His  wife  and  his 
mother  were  quietly  discussing  hair-dresser  problems. 
Florence  was  to  have  her  hair  done  up  in  real  Japanese 
fashion  on  that  night  (her  American  upbringing  had 
spoiled  her)  so  as  to  be  presentable  at  the  home  of  the 
dead,  early  next  morning. 

Sunday  at  the  Kitakaze  home  was  a  case  of  incessant 
comings  and  goings.  In  front  of  the  rather  large  house 
twenty  large  wreaths  of  flowers  had  been  placed  on 
exhibition,  each  bearing  the  name  of  the  sender  in  large 
letters  on  large  sheets  of  paper.  One  was  pointed  out 
as  that  sent  by  a  Cabinet  Minister  in  Tokyo.  Red- 
lacquered  wagonettes  fitted  out  with  the  funeral  para- 
phernalia lined  the  street  for  over  a  block. 

From  the  store  all  evidence  of  commerce  was  hidden 
behind  gold  screens  of  exquisite  art.  A  few  men  sat  at 
a  table  receiving  visitors  and  their  cards.  Again  the 
mother  and  son  came  to  greet  me  with  the  same  sad 
smile,  a  serenity  which  stuns  to  silence. 

I  was  taken  over  to  see  the  temple  arrangements. 
They  had  honored  me,  as  the  foreigner,  by  placing  the 
cluster  of  flowers  I  had  sent  at  the  right  of  the  urn,  with 
my  name  written  in  large  Japanese  characters  upon  a 
card.  The  decorations  were  perfect,  forming  two  wings, 
or  arms,  as  it  were,  reaching  out  toward  the  living.  The 
fruits  and  food  set  in  rows,  two  of  each  kind,  though 
quite  edible,  stood  aloof  from  the  approach  of  human 
desire. 

How  changed,  how  flushed  with  life  the  temple  became 
later  in  the  day !  Arrangements  were  completed  quietly 
and  in  somewhat  business-like  fashion.  The  mourners 
seated  themselves  not  facing,  but  at  right  angles  to  the 
altar-shrine,  the  sons  and  little  grandson  nearest  the 
shrine  at  their  right.  The  widow  and  daughter-in-law 
knelt  and  squatted  in  the  third  row  farthest  from  it. 


i66  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Though  still  serene  and  saintly — no,  more  divinely 
human — the  widow  responded  to  the  prayers  more 
heartily  than  the  rest,  and  did  not  a  little  silent  praying 
on  her  own  account.  It  hurt,  this  stoical  face  of  hers, 
so  sweet,  so  refined,  so  drawn.  What  a  soulful  beauty 
she  must  have  been  when  he,  now  shrived  in  the  flame 
and  secured  in  the  urn,  first  thrilled  her  to  love  and  to 
motherhood.  And  now,  firm  through  her  consolation  in 
his  life  beyond,  how  torturous  must  have  been  her 
longing,  held  against  reunion. 

Unintelligible  as  were  the  chants  and  prayers  to  me, 
the  whole  was  magnetic.  It  awakened  thoughts  and 
feelings  clear  and  wonderful  as  must  be  the  dreams  of  the 
opium-eater.  Yet  the  scene  was  not  intoxicating.  It 
did  not  overwhelm.  It  stirred  me  to  thinking,  thinking 
deeply,  precipitately,  and  it  seemed  to  wash  away 
certain  prejudices  completely. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  question  of  wealth.  I  could 
not  but  be  impressed  with  the  lavish  display.  Nor 
could  I  keep  from  falling  back  on  certain  conceptions  of 
economy,  questions  of  wealth  and  poverty.  Were  not 
this  man,  now  but  a  small  cup  of  ashes,  once  rich,  surely 
this  great  display,  this  convocation  of  all  the  priests  of 
a  temple  with  all  the  symbols  prearranged  on  principle, 
would  not  have  taken  place.  A  poor  man  would  have 
been  given  as  much  religion,  perhaps,  but  not  so  much 
regalia.  He  would  have  been  ushered  into  heaven  with 
the  same  formulas,  but  hardly  the  same  elaborateness. 
Happy  that  he  lived,  men  would  have  trembled  at  his 
death.  But  with  this  man  there  was  a  certain  gladness, 
a  glow  not  altogether  religious,  impressive  though  it 
was.  That  is  where  a  miracle  was  effected.  For  though 
nothing  definite  was  said,  it  seemed  to  symbolize  the 
ripening  of  life,  the  blossoming  of  man.  It  delights  the 
world  according  to  his  achievements. 

Men  look  with  envy  upon  the  wealthy  man,  but,  were 


WHEN  A  LIFE   BLOSSOMS  167 

we  to  think  of  riches  merely  as  a  flowering  to  adorn  the 
world,  we  would  love  its  possibilities  for  human  beauty. 
Each  man  is  a  magnet  to  whom  is  drawn  some  color  of 
loveliness.  That  he  draws  beauty  and  refinement  from 
the  blood  and  flesh  of  his  fellow-men  is  good  or  bad  only 
in  the  use  he  makes  of  it.  If  in  the  ages  in  which  man 
has  been  fired  only  a  few  have  become  great  and  beauti- 
ful, it  is  not  their  fault.  Their  becoming  was  only  the 
prophecy  of  the  greater  becoming — that  of  all  mankind 
having  learned  to  love  "becoming."  Pain  and  suffering 
were  unavoidable  in  the  unreasoned  method  of  nature. 
Then  mankind  was  unwilling  to  give  for  mere  greatness, 
to  obtain  which  it  had  to  be  drawn  through  hardened 
human  arteries.  The  source  of  human  grandeur  is  hu- 
manity, its  flowering  is  their  hearts'  blood.  A  cramped 
stem  means  a  withered  flower-head.  Those  who  have 
accomplished  in  life  should  save  themselves  from  de- 
crepitude by  rejuvenating  the  mass  from  whom  their 
greatness  has  come,  to  come  in  freer  contact  with  the 
basic  human  essence. 

This  display  was  that  final  achievement  of  a  man. 
He  lived  and  drained  the  sources  of  life,  only  to  display 
it  all  in  an  amassing  of  flowers  and  color  and  men.  The 
beautifully  surpliced  priests,  and  chanting  and  mum- 
bling in  the  midst  of  the  gathering,  were  drawn  about 
his  memory  as  truly  as  he  had  gathered  wealth  about 
himself. 

I  saw  that  gathering  in  perspective,  though  I  was  still 
present.  I  turned  it  over  as  one  does  a  lovely  vase. 
I  saw  the  crude  beginning  and  the  luxurious  finish. 
The  pot  of  human  society  was  holding  securely  this 
human  flowering.  It  had  a  meaning  for  life,  not  for 
the  hereafter. 

This  gathering  of  living  men  in  the  presence  of  a  com- 
munity of  symbols  and  at  the  time  of  the  reunion  of  the 
dead  into  a  community  of  souls  was  the  most  dramatic 


i68  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

presentation  of  Shintoism  I  had  seen  in  Japan.  It  is  more 
direct  than,  though  not  so  elaborate  as,  the  great  festi- 
vals to  which  a  whole  metropolis  turns  out,  nor  perhaps 
as  picturesque.  But  the  funeral  in  Japan  is  as  real  and 
as  personal  as  a  marriage,  and  the  dead  goes  on  to  another 
life  in  the  eyes  of  the  community  as  literally  as  the  hus- 
band into  the  house  of  his  adopted  parents.  It  is  not 
pure  mourning,  but  an  accompanying  of  the  dead  along 
the  WAY.  And  when  it  comes  to  the  funeral  of  some 
member  of  the  divine  royalty,  the  most  vital  phase  of 
Shinto  is  manifested.  When  it  is  known  that  there  are 
some  eight  million  ancestral  divinities  in  the  Japanese 
pantheon,1  you  at  once  see  that  it  is  no  lonely  road  the 
Japanese  soul  has  to  traverse.  And  never  was  a  cult 
invented  which  contrived  to  link  so  intimately  the 
living  with  the  dead,  the  parents  with  their  children, 
and  the  nation  with  the  Emperor.  Whether  it  is  a 
new  religion  or  a  new  civilization — that  is,  whether 
it  is  Oriental  Buddhism  or  Occidental  Modernism — 
Japan  manages  to  arrange  some  way  by  which  the  head 
of  Shintoism  may  protrude  from  beneath  the  borrowed 
garment.  So  it  is  that  the  great  Japanese  Buddhist 
saint,  he  who  taught  them  to  believe  that  the  Shinto 
divinities  were  but  incarnations  of  the  Buddha,  sits  to 
this  very  day  within  his  little  wooden  shrine,  not  dead, 
but  living.  And  so,  too,  is  it  that  from  beneath  every 
accepted  criticism  of  Japanese  economic  and  com- 
mercial ineptitude  emerges  the  refrain,  "We  are  loyal 
to  our  Emperor."  What  matters  it  that  this  loyalty  is 
not  in  the  least  different  from  patriotic  fervor  anywhere 
in  the  world;  that  love  of  parents  is  not  nearly  as  pro- 
found as  it  is  where  the  children  are  free  as  in  the  West  ? 
The  Oriental  needs  must  exalt  his  self-hypnotized  in- 


1  See  James  Murdoch's  A  History  of  Japan  During  the  Century  of 
Early  Foreign  Intercourse  (i 542-1651). 


A  TALKATIVE  SHINTOIST  169 

fatuation  with  himself — and  Shinto  is  the  personification 
of  this  need. 

Beautiful  as  it  seemed  to  me  in  pageant  dress,  having 
seen  behind  the  outer  veil  of  stoic  selflessness  in  sorrow, 
I  felt  the  need  of  arriving  at  some  understanding  of  the 
force  behind  it.  And  there,  in  Shinto — as  in  the  dis- 
covery that  a  smile  is  no  indication  of  real  confidence  in 
the  life  after  death  —  I  discovered  that  Emperor  or 
nature-worship  is  no  indication  of  real  regard  for  the 
person  of  the  Mikado  apart  from  his  position,  or  the 
love  of  nature  aside  from  its  symbols  associated  in  their 
minds.  I  now  determined  to  get  at  the  very  fountain- 
head  of  this  cult — the  Shinto  priest — and  drink  of  this 
wonderful  drug  which  would  alleviate  all  pain  and  kill 
all  sorrow. 

So  I  got  my  skeptical  Americanized  Japanese  to  ar- 
range for  me  to  meet  a  Shinto  clergyman.  Now,  when 
a  Japanese  says  the  word  "clergyman"  it  sounds  like 
"crazy man."  Once  I  even  nodded  and  replied  with 
conversation  suited  to  the  topic  of  lunatics,  till  his  little 
wife  smiled  and  corrected  me  with  her  fine,  clear  English, 
and  I  quickly  covered  up  my  tracks  with  a  few  pet 
vagaries. 

At  last  we  went  to  see  this  clergyman  and  I  spent  the 
afternoon  in  as  cramped  a  condition  of  body  and  emo- 
tion as  I  had  never  done  before.  During  the  session  I 
almost  wished  he  had  been  a  crazy  man,  for  then  I 
should  have  had  an  exciting  if  not  pleasant  time  of  it. 
As  it  was,  I  suffered  two  and  a  half  hours,  shifting  from 
one  uncomfortable  position  to  another,  listening  to  a 
well-modulated  if  not  enchanting  flow  of  Japanese. 
And  during  the  entire  time  I  was  of  as  little  importance 
as  a  woman  in  Japanese  conversational  settings. 

At  one  moment  I  felt  ashamed  of  having  wasted  my 
life  on  English.  Japanese  for  the  time  was  of  more  im- 
portance to  me  than  any  language  on  the  globe.  My 


iTo  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

friend  had  said  I  was  to  ask  the  clergyman  questions. 
An  hour  and  a  half  passed,  during  which  not  only  did  I 
not  ask  any  questions,  but  my  friend  himself  barely 
opened  his  mouth.  Then  came  a  pause,  and  again  my 
friend  said  I  was  to  put  any  question  to  the  priest  I 
could  think  of.  But  I  had  no  more  than  smiled  in  anti- 
cipation of  relief  when  the  clergyman  began  again,  and 
did  not  stop  for  another  hour.  Not  a  word  of  it  was 
translated  to  me.  I  shifted,  I  chafed,  I  smiled  to  my- 
self, I  even  formulated  a  nice  remark.  I  was  going  to 
say,  "Tell  him  I  deeply  regret  that  I  did  not  understand 
a  word  of  his  most  learned  discourse  on  Shintoism ;  that 
I  hope  to  come  again  when  master  of  his  tongue  (his 
mother-tongue,  I  should  say,  for  one  could  never  master 
his)  and  listen  to  him  all  over  again."  At  sea  on  the 
question  of  Shintoism,  I  was  not  going  to  stoop  to  the 
affectations  of  the  tourist  who,  on  the  morning  after  the 
departure,  plagues  the  captain  on  the  matter  of  when  he 
will  arrive. 

But  I  might  just  as  well  have  spared  myself  so  much 
labor.  He  didn't  give  me  another  chance  to  speak. 
Having  permitted  his  first  lapse  of  a  moment  to  pass 
unused,  I  was  enjoined  to  hold  my  peace. 

Now  then,  let  me  portray  my  surroundings.  The 
usual  cleanliness  obtained.  The  room  is  twenty-eight 
mats  in  size — that  is,  each  mat  always  being  three  feet 
by  six  feet,  the  room  is  twenty-four  feet  from  left  to 
right  (facing  the  shrine)  and  twenty-one  feet  from  the 
rear  to  the  altar.  The  altar  is  hung  with  strips  of  cloth 
in  brilliant  colors — blue,  green,  red,  and  yellow — and 
numerous  unnamable  other  things.  To  the  right  of 
the  altar  stands  a  pulpit-table;  in  the  center,  imme- 
diately before  it,  a  little  bucket  of  water  with  a  tiny 
wooden  cup  having  a  two-foot  handle ;  and  a  taboret  for 
rice  offerings.  Over  the  paper  sliding-door  partitions  are 
several  hundred  inscriptions  of  the  names  of  devotees. 


TANTALIZING  FORMALITY  171 

We  are  seated  near  the  entrance,  the  altar  to  our  left, 
the  clergyman  on  a  line  with  it,  his  back  to  the  passage 
out  into  the  private  apartments.  A  well-dressed,  im- 
portant-looking man  appears  and  does  all  the  duties  of 
a  servant,  yet  he  has  more  bearing  than  the  master. 
The  clergyman  sits  and  talks.  His  manners  are  ultra- 
mundane. He  smokes  his  cigarettes  and  drinks  plenty 
of  tea.  His  expression  is  not  solemn  nor  manifestly 
vigorous.  He  might  be  telling  some  romance  or  some 
adventure,  for  all  I  could  tell.  His  face  lights  up  with  a 
smile,  his  laughter  is  hearty,  and  his  delivery  low  and 
rapid.  There  is  not  the  slightest  formality  or  assump- 
tion of  reverence  in  his  ways. 

A  man  comes  in — unwelcomed.  He  bows  before  the 
altar,  repeats  his  prayer  accompanied  by  intaking  of 
breath,  claps  his  hands — unnoticed.  Having  done  this, 
he  squats  beside  us  in  silence.  Later  on  he  breaks  into 
the  talk.  He  is  evidently  much  at  home,  seems  part 
servant,  part  master,  yet  looks  even  less  of  either  than 
the  priest.  Later  still  he  becomes  more  bold,  even  car- 
ries on  a  separate  discussion  to  the  evident  distress  of 
the  master,  who  is  trying  to  read  aloud.  The  master 
stops,  waits,  shows  his  impatience,  tries  to  begin  again 
and  to  drown  out  opposition — he  conquers. 

This  little  cross-play  is  manna  to  me.  Other  than  that 
I  am  verging  on  an  internal  revolution.  A  struggle  is 
taking  place  between  self-will  and  this  foreign  formalism. 
I  am  on  the  point  of  rebelling,  of  bolting  out,  of  kicking 
over  the  round,  blue-enameled  earthenware  brazier 
called  hibachi.  I  actually  do  upset  something.  It  is  the 
cup  of  tea  which  had  been  poured  out  for  me,  but  which 
no  one  had  asked  me  to  drink.  As  it  pours  over  my 
hand  it  is  cold.  The  flood  is  mopped  up  and  the  flow 
of  Shinto  wisdom  comes  all  the  more  vigorously  for  the 
sudden  interruption. 

I  reflect  on  formalism.     I  hate  it.     If  ever  I  entertain 


172  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

I  shall  urge  my  guests  to  the  delicacies  forthwith.  This 
dragging  out  of  the  feast  seems  to  me  a  cheap  and  paltry 
way  of  entertaining.  Japanese  formality  seems  to  me 
less  bearable  because  it  is  so  informal.  That  is,  there 
is  seemingly  an  absence  of  formality,  which  leaves  you 
quite  beside  yourself  as  to  what  to  do.  The  host  does 
not  urge  you  to  anything  till  the  very  last  because  he 
has  all  along  expected  you  to  help  yourself.  Not 
having  done  so,  he  insists  on  your  wrapping  up  the 
sweets  and  taking  them  away  with  you. 

Then,  too,  everything  is  so  exquisitely  artistic  that  one 
feels  it  were  vandalism  to  make  use  of  any  of  it.  One 
looks  on  without  touching,  thinking  no  more  of  putting 
one  of  those  cakes  inside  your  worldly  self  than  one  of 
the  pretty  teacups  into  your  pocket.  The  three  cakes 
placed  on  the  tray  lie  like  three  speckled  eggs  from  which 
at  any  moment  one  might  expect  a  dainty  creature  to  be 
hatched. 

But  so  impatiently  rebellious  and  destructive  had  I 
become  that  I  challenged  custom  and  art — I  helped 
myself  to  a  cake.  I  hoped  the  act  would  draw  some 
attention  to  me,  but  it  passed  apparently  unnoticed. 
Thus  after  two  and  a  half  hours  of  trying  to  sit  lying 
down,  I  had  not  asked  one  profound  question.  Once 
my  friend  mumbled:  "You  must  be  tired.  He  talks 
too  much."  But  his  gentlemanliness  forbade  further 
protest. 

At  last  he  called  me  aside  and  began  a  synopsis  of  the 
effusion.  It  was  mainly  that  this  man  had  some  new 
ideas  on  Shintoism.  We  agreed  he  was  not  an  over- 
imposing  personage,  but  still,  a  man  with  a  new  idea 
is  not  to  be  scoffed  at. 

His  Shintoism  was  a  conception  of  truth.  Life  issues 
from  nothing  and  passes  into  nothing.  Nothing  is  truth 
and  life  is  between.  Through  this  recognition  of  nothing 
of  life  and  of  truth  he  obtains  his  power.  He  is  master 


A  LA  CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE  173 

of  life  and  fellow  with  God.  Through  his  prayers  and 
his  recognition  he  can  prevent  and  cure  disease.  (Echoes 
of  Christian  Science.)  Six  years  previous  his  incanta- 
tions brought  a  man  back  to  life  whom  a  doctor  had  pro- 
nounced dead  for  two  hours.  His  own  father  had  been 
given  up  for  ever  by  a  doctor,  but  Shintoism  conquered 
the  consumption  and  he  lived  to  seventy.  (Echoes  of 
Macfaddenism.)  And  then  the  father  of  another  friend 
lay  ill.  He  gave  him  a  form  of  absent  treatment  and 
three  weeks  to  live.  (He  died  in  only  two,  as  the  account 
of  the  funeral  just  given  will  show.)  And  all  the  time 
it  never  occurred  to  him  to  cure  me  of  my  backache, 
my  boneache,  and  the  weary  spirit  he  had  induced 
within  me. 

As  we  got  ready  to  go,  the  clergyman  produced  a 
number  of  Shinto  fans  with  a  prayer  written  upon  them 
(echoes  of  beads)  as  follows,  "The  spring  leaves  are 
rustling  loudly  outside  the  Shrine,  Under  the  protection 
of  God's  cheering  wind." 

And  thus  was  my  agony  over. 

From  all  I  have  been  able  to  gather,  and  from  such 
authorities  as  have  given  much  careful  study,  there  is 
little  of  real  religion  in  Shintoism.  Fact  is,  little  is 
known  of  its  basic  principles.  Even  on  what  is  known 
there  is  considerable  division  of  opinion,  such  a  man  as 
Hearn  regarding  it  as  ancestor-worship,  and  Aston  as 
nature-worship.  Its  pantheon  points  decidedly  in  favor 
of  the  latter  contention,  but  its  application  is  again  as 
decidedly  that  of  extreme  reverence,  if  not  sincere  wor- 
ship, of  one's  ancestors.  And  the  fact  that  the  govern- 
ment is  able  to  manipulate  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  maintain 
its  hold  upon  the  people  through  the  awe  in  which  the 
Emperor  is  regarded,  the  repeated  piffle  about  his  divine 
descent,  indicate  that  in  some  form  it  is  certainly  an 
inverted  anthropomorphism.  (In  a  later  chapter  I  shall 
show  how  it  is  being  used  politically  to  control  the  im- 


174  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

pulses  of  the  people.)  As  I  wandered  about  among  the 
people  I  began  to  see  clearly  that  this  Shintoism  was  a 
force,  by  no  means  negligible,  in  their  daily  lives  and 
actions.  How  all  their  communal  natures  found  expres- 
sion in  this  interesting  cult  without  in  reality  supplying 
any  gratification  to  their  emotional  selves!  It  simply 
is  the  spiritualization  of  primitive  clannishness  reborn 
with  the  changing  order  now  the  rule  in  Japan. 

A  religion  without  an  ethical  system,  a  religion  without 
a  hereafter,  a  religion  which  does  not  seek  for  material 
aggrandizement,  a  religion  without  art  or  edifice  to 
stimulate  its  adherents,  a  religion  without  religion — 
still  it  has  held  its  own  against  the  invasions  of  twelve 
hundred  years  of  missionary  ism,  only  to  be  revived  and 
strengthened  with  the  increasing  laxity  in  religion  the 
world  over.  Lacking  in  all  those  features  which  give 
religions  elsewhere  in  the  world  their  hold  upon  the 
people,  it  holds  these  as  the  others  have  never  been  held. 
Even  at  the  present  writing  it  is  undermining  the  faith 
of  the  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  Japanese  Chris- 
tians by  calling  them  back  to  some  form  of  ancestor- 
worship. 

Unpractised  in  the  arts  of  intellectual  hair-splitting 
and  doctrinizing,  the  Japanese  impulse  is  essentially 
that  of  the  herd.  It  does  not  know  what  it  is  to  wander 
far  afield.  Its  heart  yearns  for  some  collective  action 
stimulated  by  collective  impulse.  Actual  worship,  in 
its  more  universal  sense,  virtually  is  non-existent  here. 
Rather  is  it  the  childlike  ingenuity  of  one  who  knows 
how  to  hoodwink  a  doting  parent  into  giving  another 
check.  Patronizing  the  departed  is  perhaps  the  most 
manifest  practice. 

But  that  is  for  the  other  world.  In  this,  enough  is 
gained  by  simple  contact  with  one's  fellow-men,  being 
brought  into  communion  with  the  unknown  numbers 
through  a  central  concept,  that  suffices  for  all  the  general 


ON   NEW   YEAR  S    CARPENTERS    DANCE    OUT    THEIR    GRATITUDE    FOR    PAST 
WAGES  AND  PRESENT  GIFTS 


ALL   THE    SYMHOI.ICAL    ADJECTIVES    ARE    TIED    UP    IN   THESE    NEW   YEAR 
DECORATIONS 


t 


RELIGION   BY  RESCRIPT  175 

absence  of  moral  teachings.  Shintoism  leaves  the  in- 
dividual conscience  so  free  to  indulge  itself  as  it  pleases 
that,  costing  virtually  nothing,  it  maintains  its  hold. 
But  because  it  is  without  recorded  dogma  is  not  saying 
that  it  hasn't  any  moral  scheme  for  the  welfare  of  its 
followers.  The  governments  in  Japan  have  always 
meddled  with  the  people's  morals.  Rescripts  are 
common  even  in  this  day,  the  imperial  pronouncement 
on  education,  on  morals,  on  charity  in  great  part  taking 
the  place  of  biblical  texts  and  pulpit  sermons.  Even 
laws  in  the  Tokugawa  era  were  not  codified  because, 
regarding  the  judges  as  the  fathers  of  the  community, 
the  officials  as  its  precepts,  and  the  Emperor  as  god  on 
earth,  official  conscience  was  regarded  as  sufficiently 
reliable  for  the  administration  of  justice. 

We  are  led  to  conclude  that  the  strength  of  Shintoism 
is  in  the  family  spirit  which  dominates  the  whole  thought 
of  Japanese  life.  That  this  is  superimposed  rather  than 
inherent  is  a  little  too  early  in  the  evolution  of  the 
Japanese — and  especially  in  this  work — to  state  right 
here.  But  that  there  is  every  indication  of  its  waning, 
together  with  the  disintegrating  force  of  Pan-Nipponism, 
expansion,  and  absorption,  is  not  in  the  least  doubtful. 
Within  Japan  proper  it  is  still  potent.  But  Japan  is  now 
not  an  island  empire.  Besides  having  over  two  million 
of  its  people  residing  abroad,  it  has  added  over  twenty 
millions  of  aliens  to  its  dominions.  That  that  is  bound 
to  affect  Japan  in  a  way  exactly  opposite  to  that  in- 
tended by  its  politico-Shintoists  requires  no  great  polit- 
ical sagacity  to  foresee. 

12 


Part    Three 
THE  SPOKES  OF  MODERN  JAPAN 


XI 

THE    OPEN     HAND 

'QBE  may  well  be  said  to  be  the  hub  of 
modern  Japan.  If,  however,  one  wanted 
to  be  unkind,  one  could  say  that  Kobe  is 
the  curve  lying  between  the  thumb  and 
fingers  of  a  supinated  right  hand,  and 
nearest  the  palm,  turned  upward  for  receiving.  Ac- 
cording to  the  latter  the  route  lying  to  the  southwest 
and  Nagasaki  is  the  thumb,  and  Nara,  Osaka,  Tokyo, 
Yokohama,  and  Kyoto  are  the  four  fingers.  The  index 
finger  (Nara)  points  to  the  origin  of  the  race,  or  mytho- 
logical Japan;  the  second  finger,  the  longest,  points  to 
Osaka,  or  modern  commercial  Japan ;  the  third  points  to 
Tokyo,  or  medieval  Japan;  the  last  toward  Kyoto,  or 
what  is  left  of  classic  Japan. 

It  is  this  ideal  location  which  has  made  Kobe  what  it 
is.  It  lies  at  easy  distance  from  the  interesting  places 
in  historic  Japan;  it  is  the  brains  of  new  Japan.  To  the 
commercially  inclined  it  affords  better  opportunities  for 
exploiting  the  Orient;  to  the  artistic  and  academic  it 
affords  easy  access  to  all  that  is  permanent  in  life.  One 
can  enjoy  (if  it  can  be  called  enjoyment)  the  ease  and 
comfort  modernization  affords  in  Kobe;  or  one  can,  in 
a  couple  of  hours,  leave  it  all  behind  and  delve  into  such 
romance  as  this  quick-changing  world  still  permits. 
To  suit  these  various  interests  we  shall  venture  out  into 
these  regions  in  the  following  pages. 

On  one's  way  out  of  Kobe  along  the  "thumb"  one 


i8o  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

passes  through  Hyogo,  a  city  much  older  than  Kobe, 
but  now  totally  eclipsed  and  incorporated.  At  the 
other  end  one  changes  cars  for  the  new  electric  line 
racing  off  to  Akashi.  I  made  an  attempt  to  get  out  of 
Kobe  on  one  of  the  early  days  of  my  life  in  Japan,  and 
this  is  how  it  was  done.  I  paid  fifteen  sen  and  obtained 
a  return  ticket  to  the  next  station.  My  limping  in- 
quiries indicating  that  I  was  still  bewildered,  the  agent 
rushed  out,  obtained  a  folder  with  map  and  time-table 
in  English,  and  presented  it  to  me.  This  cleared  away 
the  confusion,  and,  seeing  what  went,  I  returned  my 
ticket,  paid  another  five  sen,  and  was  ready  to  go  to 
Suma. 

The  train  comes  in.  A  young  boy  has  mistaken  me 
for  another  foreigner  he  knows,  and  we  converse  so 
freely  that  I  have  forgotten  about  my  journey.  Two 
little  tots  accept  some  candy  from  me  in  abashed  silence. 
A  crowd  gathers  round,  observing  every  detail  and  glanc- 
ing at  my  paper  while  I  jot  down  a  note. 

How  easily  one  settles  into  places  permitting  that 
worst  of  moss — conviction — to  gather  upon  one's  north 
side!  That  extremity,  dampened  and  chilled  by  city 
life,  turns  green  with  falsity.  City  conditions  and  con- 
victions are  often  chill  and  sunless  and  are  found  among 
permanent  country  residents  as  well.  But  it  takes  a 
little  rolling  and  basking  in  the  sun  on  an  open  field  for 
such  accumulations  to  prove  their  worthlessness.  The 
drossy  conviction  I  had  entertained  during  my  first  few 
weeks  in  Kobe  was  that  I  was  seeing  Japan.  Yet  I 
didn't  know  why  I  wasn't  so  well  pleased  with  it.  I 
moved  about,  peering  pedantically  into  nooks  and  cran- 
nies, only  dimly  dreaming  of  some  future  where  I  should 
be  able  to  go  out  into  real  Japan  and  see  what  I  but 
vaguely  conceived.  The  city  stifles.  It  winds  you  about 
with  its  meshes  and  misleadings;  it  makes  you  think  you 
are  alive  because  it  is  always  pinching  you  somewhere. 


SUMA  BY  THE  SEA  181 

As  the  train,  crowded  with  people,  moved  along  with- 
out jolts  and  rocking,  we  reached  the  scar  between  city 
and  country.  Is  there  anything  more  unsightly  than 
the  places  from  which  trains  generally  emerge  from 
metropolises  ? 

The  open  country  seemed  remarkably  awake  for  the 
first  of  April.  Garden  rockeries  boasted  of  flourishing 
growths.  Newspaper  reports  about  an  early  appearance 
of  the  cherry-blossoms  caused  trade  and  barter  to  be 
forgotten  and  an  exodus  of  the  population  of  a  Japan 
which  has  not  grown  up. 

A  dreamy  wakefulness  lay  over  all.  Even  the  chalky 
hills  seemed  to  be  melting  away  as  though  it  were  spring- 
time with  old  Mother  Earth. 

Suma  is  about  six  miles  out  from  Kobe.  It  is  a  placid 
seashore,  part  of  the  pretty,  pale-gray  Inland  Sea.  The 
government,  which  runs  a  tourist  bureau,  is  alert 
enough  to  have  set  sign-boards  at  all  stations  giving 
information  in  Japanese  and  in  English  about  local 
wonders,  and  Suma  has  two  temples,  two  shrines,  two 
battlegrounds,  a  detached  palace,  and  a  tomb. 

Nothing  is  ever  done  in  Japan  without  feasting.  If 
sports  are  held,  booths  to  supply  the  visitors  encircle 
the  grounds  with  their  streams  of  curtains  with  crests 
painted  in  blue  against  a  white  background.  Suma  was 
then  celebrating,  and  thousands  had  come  to  take  part. 
Few  stragglers  were  at  the  shrines;  the  majority  found 
races  and  games  more  interesting  than  death  or  the 
hereafter. 

Every  turn  in  the  pathway  leading  up  the  hill  is 
beset  with  little  shrines,  whether  one  goes  up  one  way  or 
comes  down  another.  I  followed  one  worshiper  who, 
obedient  to  some  inner  fear  or  craving,  stopped  before 
each  separate  sanctuary,  bowed,  donated  three  pinches 
of  rice,  saluted  and  mumbled,  and  passed  on,  to  pause 
and  repeat  the  performance  at  the  next  shrine.  Such 


182  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

patience  (and  indolence)  is  indeed  worthy  of  heaven. 
No  chance  for  the  devout  in  Japan  to  worship  by  proxy. 
Buddhism  demands  substantial  proof  of  devotion. 
Climbing  is  all  well  enough,  but  thousands  of  pinches  of 
rice,  hardly  worth  the  thought  of  the  individual  givers, 
are  bound  to  accumulate  into  bushels.  And  the  little 
stone  images  sit  sworn  to  secrecy,  some  with  cotton- 
cloth  capes  over  their  shoulders,  lost  in  reflection  as  to 
whom  they  are  supposed  to  represent  or  whom  they 
should  protect. 

Japanese  nature  is  as  human  as  is  ours.  .  It  is  but  a 
stone's  throw  from  the  temple  to  the  zoo.  The  few 
imprisoned  creatures,  tortured  for  the  sake  of  human 
curiosity,  sleep  away  their  lives  in  helpless  inanity. 
They  don't  even  care  now  if  they  are  being  -stared  at. 
The  secreted  godhead,  the  priest,  and  populace  pay  as 
little  attention  to  the  staring  tourist.  They,  too,  have 
grown  used  to  it. 

But  I  am  getting  a  little  confused,  seeing  so  much  and 
understanding  so  little.  Surely  there  is  a  distinction 
between  man  and  animals.  Yet,  one  must  eat.  Obvi- 
ously it  is  a  supreme  necessity.  Western  people  at 
sports  might  scoff  at  such  coarseness.  To  eat  anything 
heavier  than  popcorn  or  peanuts  at  a  game  would  be 
debasing.  But  the  Oriental  is  a  more  practical  person. 
Food  of  every  description  is  being  cooked  in  ovens  and 
in  stomachs,  food  pierced  by  long,  sharp-pointed  sticks, 
boiled  and  frizzled,  just  as  it  suits  one's  taste.  There 
is  even  a  hotel  on  the  beach  of  the  little  lake.  It  looks 
palatial.  But  oh,  how  lacking  in  Occidental  life! 
One  is  ushered  into  a  room  by  oneself  and  there  left 
waiting  for  the  cold,  greasy  viands  and  soups.  I  ordered 
chicken.  It  arrived  post-haste — a  most  unusual  thing 
in  Japan.  It  surely  must  have  been  cooked  a  fortnight 
ago  in  anticipation  of  my  coming.  Why  bother  warming 
it?  And  there  was  rice  and  tea.  All  d  la  carte.  And 


TOMBS  183 

my  bill  came  to  twenty-nine  and  one-half  cents  gold, 
at  the  then  existing  rate  of  exchange. 

I'm  through  with  the  living.  Let  me  hunt  out  the 
place  of  the  dead.  "Atsumori's  haka,  where  is,  please?" 
Alas!  no  one  knows.  I  wander  about  like  a  lost  soul. 
Is  there  no  one  in  all  Suma  who  knows  that  the  tomb  of 
one  Atsumori  is  still  with  him?  Alas!  What  is  the 
use  of  having  a  tomb?  People  should  bow  their  heads 
to  the  ground  at  the  mere  mention  of  so  sacred  a  name. 
The  way,  my  way,  after  perspiring  efforts,  is  shown  me 
and  I  wander  along  the  sunny,  dusty  road.  A  coolie  gives 
me  marked  attention  and  seems  intelligently  acquainted 
with  tombs.  Think  of  it !  Poor  Atsumori,  how  indignant 
he  would  feel,  how  chagrined  and  ashamed!  And  yet, 
but  for  this  coolie  I  should  never  have  found  the  tomb. 
It  stands  just  a  few  steps  off  the  main  road,  now  set 
atremble  every  moment  by  rumbling  trains  and  screech- 
ing trolley-cars.  Such  intercession!  Poor  Atsumori! 
Frustrated!  Certainly  you  had  hoped  for  rest  here, 
away  from  the  confusion  of  life,  here  by  the  placid, 
swishing  sea,  and  now  to  be  so  rudely  cut  off  from  its 
peace. 

Who,  then,  is  Atsumori?  Not  at  all  an  unworthy  lad. 
He  was  only  sixteen  when  his  head  came  off,  like  the 
plum-blossom  which  is  cut  off  at  the  first  of  the  year  by 
the  selfish  enthusiast.  Sixteen  years  alive,  now  six 
hundred  years  dead.  Dates  worth  remembering.  It  is 
also  worth  remembering  that  when  this  lad  found  himself 
at  the  mercy  of  a  powerful  enemy  warrior,  he  fought  to 
the  last,  winning  his  victory  in  death.  His  enemy, 
when  he  removed  the  helmet  from  his  antagonist's  head 
in  order  the  more  quickly  to  slay  him,  saw  that  it  was 
that  of  the  boy  Atsumori.  Reluctantly  he  finished 
what  he  had  set  out  to  do,  fearing  the  child  might  fall 
into  worse  hands,  and  then  presented  the  boy's  head  to 
his  father.  After  that  he  renounced  life,  entered  a 


i84  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

monastery  to  pray  for  the  soul  of  the  child  whom  he  had 
thus  prevented  from  leading  a  life  of  life-taking.  What 
a  sad  world  it  was  then!  Yet  men  glory  in  it!  And 
to-day  little  Atsumori  is  still  venerated  by  other  little 
boys,  much  more,  perhaps,  than  if  he  had  not  been  slain 
at  sixteen.  Suma-dera  shows  a  few  relics  of  the  lad,  and 
lads  sing  accounts  of  him  with  mischievous  self- 
consciousness. 

I  wandered  back  again. 

No,  tombs  and  castles  and  temples  and  shrines — these 
are  not  the  places  of  interest.  They  are  only  cumulative 
evidence — no  more.  I  return  to  the  living,  throbbing, 
even  though  as  often  discordant  as  artistic,  Japan. 
The  fact  that  it  has  tombs  and  ancient  shrines  only 
attests  its  activity.  Just  as  the  real  temple  reveals 
itself  only  after  the  worshipers  have  .gone,  and  the  silence 
obtains,  so  is  the  tomb  but  the  timepiece  of  eternity 
without  tick  and  alarm.  Above  its  silence  hovers  the 
historic  incident,  just  as  above  the  jostling,  jabbering 
playfulness  of  worship  lurks  the  eternal  calm.  There  is 
no  death  without  life,  and  no  life  without  silence.  Death 
is  a  deeper  silence,  and  no  more. 

Why  is  so  much  attention  wasted  on  death?  Simply 
because  we  don't  live  properly.  Were  there  not  some 
cankering  irregularity  in  our  living,  we  should  no  more 
concern  ourselves  about  dying  and  after  than  we  do 
about  the  condition  of  the  church  or  temple  or  theater 
after  our  exodus.  Does  any  one  ever  stop  and  shudder 
while  at  a  performance  because  in  another  hour  or  two 
the  stage  will  have  become  deceased,  will  lose  its  life? 
Because,  when  worshipers  have  dispersed,  the  church  is 
dead  ?  No,  Japan  is  not  richer  because  of  its  sepulchers, 
no  matter  how  old.  Neither  its  tombs  nor  its  volcanic 
hills  are  the  secret  of  its  present  interest.  Our  sorrow 
should  be  for  its  present  failures,  not  for  the  dead. 

Just  before  the  hotel,  on  the  main  street,  amid  the 


THE   POISON  OF   PRUDISHNESS  185 

crowd  gathering  to  return  to  Kobe,  was  a  group  of 
drunken  men  with  geisha.  The  women  were  not  in  the 
least  ashamed.  Why  should  they?  It  was  their  pro- 
fession. Vulgarities  unmentionable  were  enacted.  But 
I'm  forgetting.  Every  positive  must  have  a  negative. 
As  to  which  is  good  and  which  bad,  who  can  tell? 

Suddenly  a  flood  of  uniformed  Japanese  poured 
through  the  avenue  of  trees,  shouting  and  laughing 
heartily.  They  were  Suma's  fire-brigade  indulging 
themselves,  and  about  a  thousand  little  children,  in  the 
pleasures  of  a  fire-drill.  They  looked  like  Robin  Hood's 
forces  transplanted  to  Japan.  At  the  edge  of  the  little 
lake  they  arrayed  themselves  in  form,  ready  to  put  their 
antiquated  instruments  to  a  thorough  test.  A  ten-foot 
pole  had  at  one  end  two  prongs,  and  at  the  other  a  ball 
from  which  hung  a  great  number  of  leather  strips.  The 
hand-pump  when  worked  furiously  sent  a  stream  of 
water  half  an  inch  in  diameter  fully  a  hundred  feet. 
But  this  was  mere  practice;  some  other  time  we'll  have 
a  real  fire  and  the  marvel  of  seeing  it  put  out  will  be 
described. 

On  hot  summer  days  the  beach  is  alive  with  bathers. 
Physically  the  bathers  aren't  any  too  robust,  but  morally 
it  seems  that,  in  spite  of  all  said  against  them,  they  move 
on  a  much  higher  plane.  It  is  amazing  with  what 
simplicity  and  indifference  bathers  changed  from 
bathing-suit  to  kimono  without  the  use  of  pavilions. 
Women  appeared  quite  naked,  and  dressed  in  the  midst 
of  crowds  of  both  sexes,  yet  no  one  but  ourselves  seemed 
to  pay  any  attention  to  it.  I  believe  the  time  will  come 
when  the  Japanese  will  hate  the  foreigners  most  bitterly 
and  most  justly  for  their  interference  in  this  phase  of 
their  life.  For  nothing  but  the  poison  of  prudishness  has 
come  to  take  the  place  of  their  former  indifference  to  the 
nude.  It  is  the  custom  of  missionary  critics  of  Japanese 
morality  to  forget  the  immorality  they  left  behind.  No 


1 86  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

one  who  knows  the  Japan  of  yesterday  and  to-day  will 
say  that  the  people  have  been  bettered  in  any  way  by 
the  introduction  of  western  morality.  It  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  in  ancient  times,  as  now,  here  as  every- 
where, adultery  has  been  looked  upon  as  a  crime. 

Between  Kobe  and  Akashi  lie  about  nine  miles  of  the 
loveliest  beach  on  the  Inland  Sea.  The  water  is  gener- 
ally smooth,  though  on  occasion  swells  roll  in  by  way  of 
Kii  Channel  and  storms 'sweep  across  it  convulsively. 
Its  beauty  is  illusive  and  the  island  across  the  way  is 
invariably  lost  in  mist.  When  the  hills  appear,  they 
look  like  a  snowflake  under  a  microscope.  The  sea 
itself  is  a  film  of  easy  animation,  with  fishing-boats  per- 
forming their  centuries-old  task  of  weaving  industry 
into  art. 

Hereabouts  the  hills  are  studded  with  characteristic 
Japanese  pines.  There  is  a  striking  resemblance  be- 
tween the  motions  of  the  body  and  hands  in  Japanese 
dances  and  the  direction  of  the  green  twisted  branches. 
Something  mimicky  abounds  in  both,  but  a  slight  taint 
of  vulgarity  and  a  very  decided  primitive  resentment  at 
conflict  with  superior  forces  mar  the  dances.  Insular- 
ism  affects  both  man  and  nature.  The  winds  mold  the 
trees  and  the  trees  mock  the  repression.  People  feel 
the  repression  in  isolation  until  it  is  broken  into  by  out- 
siders. Then  a  mocking  spirit  takes  hold  of  them. 
Wasn't  it  the  clown  who  mocked  the  crown  with  im- 
punity? And  it  would  seem  that  Japanese  resentment 
against  the  oppression  of  feudalism,  not  daring  to  vent 
itself  openly  and  directly,  found  relief  in  an  indirect 
form  of  amusement,  though  they  didn't  know  them- 
selves against  whom  it  was  aimed.  Hence  the  ludicrous 
attitudes  of  the  men  in  dancing.  Instead  of  man  being 
an  evolved  monkey,  may  it  not  be  that  the  monkey  is 
a  distorted  man,  a  creature  in  whom  his  human  nature 
was  repressed? 


AKASHI   AND  A  CASTLE  187 

For  the  benefit  of  such  of  the  nobility  as  on  occasion 
or  on  command  resort  to  the  detached  palace  at  Suma 
there  has  been  built  a  special  shrine.  It  is  not  open  to 
the  general  public.  It  is  but  about  three  years  old  and 
cost  over  thirty  thousand  yen.  Immaculate  cleanliness 
obtains  throughout  the  spacious  inclosure.  The  long 
rows  of  unsoiled  mats  in  the  main  chamber,  the  narrow 
side  rooms,  the  long  strips  of  deep-blue  hangings,  seem 
immune  to  the  possible  uncleanliness  of  touch.  One 
would  bow  and  worship  this  in  itself  regardless  of  the 
tenets  it  was  there  to  guard  or  symbolize. 

The  ceiling  over  the  altar  was  made  of  decorative  panel 
insets.  Rich  in  color,  they  seemed  to  open  the  roof  to 
the  vision  of  human  aspiration.  Ultra-modern,  they 
still  maintained  a  subtle  element  of  Japanese  originality. 
Two  panels  on  either  side  of  the  wall  behind  the  altar 
or  shrine  contained  figures  obscured  by  flowing  lines, 
which  looked  like  imitations  of  angels  in  flight.  They 
are  frescoes  of  pagan  grotesqueness  softened,  rather 
than  angelic  studies  made  weird.  It  is  the  pagan  influ- 
enced by  contact  with  westernism,  however  pagan  the 
affecting  ideals  themselves  may  be. 

Brass  bowls  and  vases  and  simple  offerings  stood  be- 
fore the  altar.  Luxurious  and  imposing  as  these  were, 
arranged  to  give  a  brilliant  impression,  to  arrest  the  full- 
est attention  of  the  worshiper,  it  all  went  beyond  the 
point  of  personal  appeal.  It  seemed  to  me  to  recognize 
each  man  as  a  human  being  originally  innocent  of  sin 
and  crime,  and  to  recall  him  to  recognition  of  his  own 
essential  goodness  and  virtue.  It  seemed  to  challenge 
these  forced  confessions  of  sin  which  have  weakened  the 
moral  forces  of  mankind.  These  brilliant  settings  and 
simple  cleanliness  recall  the  innocent  to  their  innocence 
and  to  the  sweetness  of  life. 

A  few  miles  farther  west  along  the  same  Inland  Sea 
stands  Akashi,  the  place  decided  upon  as  the  time 


i88  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

meridian  of  Japan.  It  is  that  in  another  and  more 
picturesque  way,  for  to  step  within  the  grounds  of  what 
is  left  of  the  former  daimyo's  castle  is  to  pass  on  into 
another  world  of  time.  But  two  towers  in  white  remain 
unimpaired.  The  rest  of  the  reserve  is  only  sloping 
stone  walls  and  muddy  moats  within  which,  dreaming 
away  eternity,  loll  the  lovely  lotus-leaves.  Nowhere  was 
more  of  old  Japan  left  undisturbed  than  in  this  district 
at  this  castle  until  the  greedy  hand  of  Kobe  reached 
out  for  it  and  made  of  it  a  public  park.  How  sad  it  is. 
Not  till  it  was  trimmed  and  spoiled  did  it  become  public 
property.  Why  couldn't  they  have  let  it  alone?  The 
sequestered  paths,  the  cool  and  peace-won  woods,  the 
moss-  and  plant -grown  walls — something  more  than  the 
Orient  lay  hidden  there.  Something  of  life  which  spans 
all  space  and  outlives  all  time. 

The  lotus  was  in  flower.  The  thick,  generous,  sturdy 
leaves  with  the  pure-white  bulb!  Within  each  leaf 
rolled  the  quicksilver-like  bead  of  water,  rolled^  nor  left 
a  streak  or  stain,  rolled  like  a  pearl  in  one's  palm,  rolled 
without  purpose  or  aspiration.  How  it  gets  there— 
who  can  tell?  It  plays  with  the  wind  and  teases  the 
leaf.  But  nothing  disturbs  anything  in  that  lotus 
world. 

The  day  was  altogether  too  fine  for  one  to  be  within; 
while  within  it  was  altogether  too  noisy  and  too  dirty  to 
resist  the  day.  It  was  the  great  cleaning-day.  Wishing 
to  avoid  being  either  within  or  without,  I  gave  way  to  the 
impulse  and — well,  no,  I  didn't  catch  the  train  for  Akashi. 
The  ticket-seller  said,  "Yes,"  the  wicket-keeper  said, 
"No,"  and  just  as  I  gave  voice  to  a  most  unmentionable 
invective  a  fine-looking  Japanese  emerged  from  amid  the 
swarming  crowds  of  youngsters  and  attended  to  my 
wants,  upbraided  the  wicket-keeper,  flourished  honorifics 
at  the  ticket-seller,  and  blushed  for  shame  for  his  stupid 
fellow-countrymen.  I  was  saved.  But  I  did  not  catch 


MUSHROOM  ACQUAINTANCES  189 

the  train.  It  went  away  quite  gleefully  without  me. 
The  express  came  in  and  picked  me  up  and  rushed  me 
madly  after  that  local  as  much  as  to  say:  "Now,  you 
stupid  thing.  I'll  show  you  how  to  leave  honorable 
foreigners  behind."  In  the  meanwhile  I  made  friends 
with  my  Japanese  savior.  He  had  been  to  America 
and  spoke  fluent  English.  He  had  a  family  of  a  wife  and 
three  children  (the  wife  must  not  be  forgotten)  and  was 
a  steel-broker  in  Kobe.  He  gave  me  his  card  and  it  did 
not  have  his  name  in  English  on  the  back — which  is 
worth  noting.  The  card  of  every  other  Japanese  aspir- 
ant has.  He  invited  me  to  come  for  a  walk  with  him 
some  afternoon,  and  the  train  arrived  at  Akashi. 

Now  I  want  to  confess  that  I  had  been  deliberating 
between  going  alone  and  going  for  some  friend.  I 
finally  went  alone.  But  it  is  impossible  to  be  alone  in 
Japan.  Japanese  are  too  cordial  and  like  to  speak 
English  too  much.  So  though  I  landed  at  Akashi  alone, 
it  was  not  long  before  I  was  provided  with  sufficient 
escort.  I  asked  my  way  to  the  Awaji  ferry,  and  of 
course  the  man  of  whom  I  asked  it  had  to  be  going  to 
the  same  place.  So  we  pooled  forces. 

Akashi  is  quite  a  village.  But  I  shall  describe  it 
when  I  get  a  chance  to  be  there  alone  to  see  it  as  it 
is.  We  went  up  one  street,  and  I  was  just  about  to  see 
something  when  my  friend  began  talking  and  found  he 
was  on  the  wrong  street.  So  we  came  back  again.  We 
turned  to  our  left  and  there  before  us  was  the  prettiest 
sight  imaginable,  but  my  friend  was  talking  in  "Eng- 
lish"— so  I  cannot  tell  you  what  it  was.  Strangely 
enough,  this  happened  again  and  again,  yet  I  cannot  tell 
you  what  that  extraordinarily  beautiful  aspect  of 
Akashi  was.  We  went  backward  and  forward  through  a 
street  as  though  we  were  on  the  inside  of  a  Chinese 
dragon,  and  saw  about  as  much.  By  that  time  we  had 
passed  the  ferry  station  twice  and  were  returning  to  it 


igo  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

m  amazement.  He  talked  a  lot  to  Japanese  and  each 
one  directed  us  with  the  same  certainty. 

A  dull  resignation  came  over  me  as  I  lolled  in  the  sun 
of  that  glorious  day.  I  would  have  gone  into  a  sort  of 
emotional  non-existence  had  it  not  been  for  Emerson. 
He  was  with  me.  Rare  is  such  a  friendship.  We  say 
little  to  each  other,  and  he  never  talks  but  when  I  ask 
him  something.  Then  he  does  not  just  talk;  he  reveals, 
he  points  out,  and  every  touch  of  his  dissolves  the  gold  of 
life  into  a  more  exquisite  essence.  Then  I  have  but  to 
think  of  a  shape  and  the  gold  pours  into  this  thought- 
mold  and  remains  fixed  for  the  moment  in  the  solidity 
of  usefulness.  I  think  of  another  form  of  loveliness,  and 
the  same  "touch"  turns  the  substance  to  gold,  soft  and 
formative.  And  so  the  world  is  in  constant  flux,  and 
life  pours  beautifully  about  me.  So  suited  are  his 
thoughts  to  every  phase  of  nature  that  Japan  at  her  best 
is  no  better.  Ah,  I  am  not  fit  for  such  fine  companion- 
ship. Emerson  had  never  snubbed  me  nor  would  he 
leave  me  under  any  circumstance,  but  I  leave  him  very 
often.  And  just  then  I  forgot  all  about  him  because  my 
Japanese  "friend"  thought  of  another  word  he  had 
once  learned  as  some  foreigner's  banto. 

The  launch  came  and  we  were  soon  making  our  way 
across  to  Awaji.  Awaji  is  an  island.  From  the  dis- 
tance one  does  not  wonder  much  at  the  imagination 
which  credited  it  with  mythological  origin.  From  its 
own  shores  it  yields  less  to  such  touches.  And  though 
every  isolated  race  on  the  face  of  the  earth  has  draped 
the  little  land  which  nourished  it  to  nationality  with 
special  divine  favor,  there  is  perhaps  no  island  in  the 
world  occupying  the  exalted  position  of  Awaji.  Feed- 
ing 194,000  people,  or  5,200  to  the  square  ri,  on  rice  and 
pickles,  it  sustains  50,000,000  on  myth  and  vanity. 
For  when  the  creator  and  creatress  of  Japan,  Izanami 
and  Izanagi,  put  aside  their  virginity,  it  was  the  island 


THE   BANKS  ARE   BLACK,  QUAGMIRE-I.IKF.:     THE  SQUALOR   MORE   REAL  THAN 

APPARENT 


BY  NINE  A.M.  THEATER  STREET  WAS  AGOG  WITH  LIFE 


FROM    ROOF    TO    ROOF    SHOI'KKKI'KRS    HAD    AI.RKADV    I)RA\VN    \\HITK    CLOTH 
STRIPS  TO  I-II.TKR  THE  SLN's  KAYS 


AWAJI— THE  FIRST-BORN  191 

of  Awaji  which  remained  to  tell  the  tale.  Otherwise  we 
should  never  have  known  it.  Here,  then,  is  the  cradle  of 
the  deep  in  which  the  divine  ancestors  of  Japan  rocked 
their  first-born.  Of  course,  the  story  of  the  creation  of 
Japan  is  in  essence  not  very  much  different  from  that  of 
the  ancient  Hebrews.  The  Oriental  tale  is  a  little  more 
chauvinistic,  that  is  all.  The  ancient  Hebrews  were 
more  international,  and  a  little  wiser.  They  made  a 
more  general  statement  about  the  creation  of  the  world, 
and  thus  laid  themselves  open  for  less  scientific  criticism. 
But  the  marvel  of  it  is  that  in  this  far-off  island  world 
one  dare  not  doubt,  while  everywhere  else  doubting  the 
creation  of  the  world  entire  has  become  an  anachronism. 

This  much,  however,  is  a  startling  reality.  The  island 
of  Awaji  is  slowly  sinking.  The  shore-line  nearest 
Akashi  is  gradually  narrowing,  and  fishermen  are  being 
driven  elsewhere  for  their  livelihood  and  for  places  to 
stretch  their  nets.  I  presume  that  in  time  to  come  the 
disappearance  of  this  island  will  be  regarded  as  the 
Ascension  by  the  theocrats  of  this  little  world. 

I  cannot  account  for  the  mystery  of  it,  but  what  con- 
nection with  this  mythology  can  it  have  that  my  return 
from  Awaji  was  at  a  time  when  the  whole  of  Japan  seemed 
to  have  gone  mushroom-gathering  and  fairly  littered  the 
train  with  their  harvest. 

13 


XII 

THE    THUMB 

West  to  Nagasaki 

misses  the  wilderness  and  the  wide  spaces 
in  Japan.  Forty-five  million  people  crowd 
the  rural  districts  with  a  pressure  that  is 
like  the  weight  of  the  water  near  the  bottom 
of  the  sea.  There  is  hardly  what  we  call 
a  homestead;  strings  and  strings  of  villages  make  of 
all  Japan  a  metropolis  with  suburbs.  You  never  see  an 
isolated  farm-house,  you  never  breathe  the  air  of  open 
places.  But  in  every  nook  and  corner  you  may  find  a 
calm  and  stillness,  a  sort  of  subhuman  inactivity. 
Japanese  cities  are  but  the  surface  disturbances  of  world 
striving. 

Like  a  Martin  Eden  I  slipped  out  of  the  modern 
Japanese  ship — Kobe — and  dove  for  the  bottom  till  I 
reached  Himeji,  thirty-four  miles  toward  the  west. 

I  was  the  companion  of  a  young  Japanese  who  was 
going  home  to  his  relatives  to  see  them  a  last  time  before 
sailing  for  America. 

Primarily,  interest  in  Himeji  is  in  its  ancient  castle. 

This  magnificent  structure  in  white  domineers  over 
the  plains  in  Harima  province,  over  which  it  has  ceased 
to  rule.  It  stands  out  above  all  other  buildings,  bare 
and  brazen,  eagle-like,  but  lifeless.  Compared  with 
Osaka  and  Tokyo  castles,  it  is  wanting  in  beauty,  lacks 
that  flighty  spirituality  of  other  Japanese  edifices,  and 
certainly  has  none  of  their  stately  reserve.  It  seems  to 
have  been  born  of  two  motives — to  see  and  be  seen. 


A  CASTLE   FORTRESS  193 

It  is  marvelously  well  preserved  for  its  age,  having 
been  begun  in  the  fourteenth  century  and  finished  in 
the  sixteenth.  The  interior  is  coarse,  rough,  harsh, 
and  hollow.  It  rings  with  the  voice  of  austerity  and 
harbors  no  retreat  but  for  men  of  austere  natures. 
It  has  no  chambers,  wooden  pillars  alone  foresting 
the  cold,  bare  interior.  Of  course,  it  is  now  stripped 
and  its  nudity  adds  to  its  seeming  coldness.  But  one 
cannot  imagine  softness  having  lounged  there  in  thought 
or  action.  Strong  as  those  massive  wooden  columns 
are,  one  cannot  picture  esthetes  leaning  against  them. 
White  without,  dull  within,  seven  stories  turreted  in 
ever-decreasing  area,  each  seems  but  a  means  of  seeing 
farther,  not  better.  A  mound  of  power,  it  is  motion- 
less, eight  hundred  feet  of  stone,  wood,  and  plaster. 
One  wonders  whether  six  centuries  hence  the  Woolworth 
Building  in  New  York  will  have  resisted  time  and  change 
as  vigorously. 

Then  the  harakiri  maru,  or  suicide-room.  (It  con- 
veys somewhat  of  a  wrong  impression  to  translate  the 
word  harakiri,  or  seppuku,  as  suicide,  for,  though  both 
stand  for  self-murder,  still  the  circumstances  are  alto- 
gether different.  The  latter  was,  in  fact,  more  generally 
self-execution — that  is,  the  person  was  ordered  to  cut 
himself  open.  Beside  him  stood  a  trusted  friend  or 
executioner,  sword  raised,  ready  to  sever  the  bowed  head 
from  the  body  the  instant  the  victim's  knife  had  pene- 
trated his  abdomen.  There  were,  indeed,  cases  of  real 
suicide,  where  a  person,  cornered,  preferred  death  to 
falling  into  the  hands  of  his  enemy.)  Even  the  harakiri- 
room  still  stands.  Whatever  it  may  have  looked  like  in 
ancient  times,  to-day  it  is  little  more  than  a  shed.  A 
platform  as  high  as  a  Japanese  shoulder  fits  into  the 
room.  Here  the  fateful  man  drank  his  last  draught  of 
pride,  while  before  him  stood  human  beings  to  admire 
and  applaud. 


194  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

What  a  life  it  was!  A  castle  conceived  in  slaughter, 
baptized  in  blood,  harboring  self-murder,  and  now 
haunted  by  the  ghost  of  an  innocent  victim.  It  was 
finally  finished  by  the  lowly  born  Hideyoshi;  its  car- 
penter cast  himself  down  from  on  top  because  even  his 
wife  had  noticed  a  slight  lean  to  the  pillars ;  it  saw  many 
a  proud  samurai  open  himself;  and  a  beautiful  girl  was 
here  beaten  to  death  and  her  body  cast  into  the  well. 
The  latter  story  is  worth  retelling. 

Okiku  was  a  beautiful  girl  and  concubine  to  one  of  the 
retainers.  Another  loved  her,  but  she  repulsed  him,  con- 
cubine though  she  was.  There  is  morality  even  among 
concubines.  But  enemies  were  in  those  days  a  social 
necessity.  The  girl's  lord  had  enemies  or  he  never 
would  have  been  a  lord.  They  plotted  against  him  or 
they  never  would  have  been  enemies.  They  were  frus- 
trated or  there  never  would  have  been  "The  Well  of 
Okiku."  Okiku  had  revealed  the  plot  in  question  and 
was  ordered  to  be  put  to  death,  but  the  executioner, 
"inflamed  with  her  beauty,"  preserved  her  life.  Un- 
grateful for  thus  being  saved,  she  still  was  moral  enough 
to  repulse  the  advances  of  her  benefactor.  This  story 
is  a  little  confused,  but  it  seems  the  enamoured  male  could 
not  see  beauty  so  virtuous  and  unapproachable,  and, 
fearing  lest  another  come  and  ravage  it,  killed  Okiku 
himself.  Not  as  the  "brave  man  with  the  sword,"  but 
he  "beat  her  every  day  and  finally  put  her  to  death  by 
torture,  throwing  her  corpse  into  the  well."  Conse- 
quently, "for  a  long  time  after  this  the  well  was  said  to 
be  haunted  by  her  ghost,  which  came  out  every  night, 
counting  dishes  and  weeping  bitterly."  This  selfsame 
lord,  had  he  committed  an  unintentioned  error  toward 
his  lord,  would  have  been  given  a  chance  to  cut  himself 
open  before  the  admiring  gaze  of  his  fellow-warriors. 

There  are  many  wells  within  this  fortress,  and  since 
destiny  had  intended  that  this  place,  so  full  of  action 


HIMEJI— THE  DUST-BIN  195 

and  self-murder,  be  some  day  silent  and  hollow  with 
wells  unused,  a  small  girl's  ghost  might  just  as  well 
make  use  of  one.  We  hear  nothing  of  what  happened  to 
the  criminal.  How  many  thousand  ghosts  must  wander 
about  Himeji? 

From  the  top  one  commands  a  lovely  view  of  the  plain 
round  about.  It  is  encircled  with  hills,  opening  like  a 
dust-pan  out  on  the  Inland  Sea.  And  the  sea  seems  to 
sweep  the  numerous  little  islands  toward  it. 

Himeji  is  another  sort  of  dust-bin,  for  here,  in  1905  and 
1915,  prisoners  of  war,  first  Russians,  then  Germans,  were 
kept,  and  an  army  division  is  quartered.  I  wonder 
when  all  militarism  will  be  swept  into  the  dust-bin.  It 
seems  mankind  will  never  learn,  not  even  from  unused 
fortresses. 

Many  quiet  little  villages  lie  scattered  round  about 
Himeji,  the  numerous  coves  between  the  hills  having 
each  its  hamlet — now  called  suburbs  by  English-stutter- 
ing Japanese. 

There  are  two  temples  here;  one  is  used  for  wor- 
shipers, the  other  for  prisoners.  At  the  latter  there  is  a 
most  beautiful  pine-tree.  Its  branches  are  straight, 
reaching  out  across  a  circular  plot  about  thirty  feet  in 
diameter.  More  than  sixty  twelve-foot  props  support 
them ;  a  little  forest  under  a  tree. 

I  had  come  to  Himeji  with  a  young  Japanese  and  was 
to  visit  his  home.  Our  rickshaw  men  took  to  a  narrow 
little  roadway  round  the  base  of  the  castle  and  then  cut 
across  the  rice-fields.  Soldiers  were  trimming  the  weeds 
in  the  ditch-drains.  Women,  children,  and  laborers 
wandered  about  as  though  it  were  midday.  The  rice- 
fields  were  rich  and  carpet-like.  Turning  once  to  the 
right  and  then  straight  on  we  reached  Shinzaike. 

It  was  in  the  cool  of  the  evening,  when  all  the  world 
puts  aside  the  stress  of  life  for  the  comfort  of  living. 
Laborers — and  who  is  not  a  laborer  in  Japan? — were 


i96  JAPAN— REAL  AND   IMAGINARY 

gathering  the  scattered  remnants  of  their  toil.  But  for 
the  disgusting  odor  which  vitiates  the  sweeter  scents  of 
country  life  in  Japan  the  setting  had  been  perfect. 

The  village  temple  rang  with  evening  prayer.  It  was 
not  exquisitely  furnished,  but  it  was  rich  in  rustic 
simplicity. 

The  little  cemetery,  too,  was  part  of  the  village.  My 
companion — a  Christian — could  not  pass  without  paying 
his  Shinto  respects  at  his  mother's  grave.  I  tried  to  get 
him  to  tell  me  why  he  became  a  Christian,  but  he  was 
one  of  those  Japanese  who  can  speak  fairly  well  until 
they  don't  want  to  tell  you  what  you  are  after.  He 
would  not  commit  himself.  He  was  a  hyphenated 
Christian,  not  uncommon  in  Japan. 

The  village  was  dirty  and  smelly,  but  not  a  sound  was 
there  to  disturb  the  glory  of  its  silence.  After  the  vulgar 
laughter  and  maudlin  songs,  the  frantic  calls  for  jin- 
rikishas,  the  monotonous  fue  (bamboo  flute),  the  scrap- 
ing, the  incessant  scraping  of  wooden  shoes,  which 
keeps  the  streets  of  Kobe  in  a  perpetual  motion,  I  could 
not  get  enough  of  this  far-away  stillness.  For  the  first 
few  hours  I  felt  like  a  steamer  laboring  heavily  on  swells 
after  the  passing  of  a  typhoon. 

Children  huddled  in  the  middle  of  rooms  open  to  the 
world,  waiting  for  their  elders  to  return.  One  sat  like 
a  little  savage  watching  the  flames  in  the  fireplace  in 
the  outer  shed.  My  companion  stopped  to  chat  with 
boys  who  had  been  to  school  with  him.  His  parents 
had  been  ambitious,  so  he  was  Europeanized,  dressed  in 
foreign  style,  and  spoke  English.  This  country  lad 
went  about  in  primitive  simplicity,  practically  no 
clothing  on  his  body  and  no  manners  on  his  healthy 
instincts. 

The  home  of  the  headman — my  companion's  brother- 
was  in  the  midst  of  little  mud  huts  with  thatched  roofs. 
The  lure  of  the  quiet  was  great,  and  they  appreciated 


IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  CENTURIES          197 

its  value,  for  there  was  not  too  much  talk.  They  had 
asked  me  to  stay  the  night.  At  first  I  hesitated,  then  I 
precipitated  a  second  invitation,  and  remain  I  did.  I 
settled  into  the  night  and  its  quietude  with  a  sense  of 
comfort  that  was  not  only  snug  but  unfolding.  Japan 
generally  suffers  by  too  close  inspection.  Here  prox- 
imity reached  the  heart  of  the  world. 

We  sat  upon  the  mats,  looking  out  into  the  little  garden 
inclosed  in  a  six-foot  wall.  Beyond  stood  the  white 
"Heron  Castle,"  slowly  sinking  into  the  night.  It  was 
lovely  beyond  comparison.  The  greater  shadows  of 
world  peace  thus  embraced  the  shadows  of  that  symbol 
of  centuries  of  conflict.  And  there  I  passed  one  of  the 
most  peaceful  nights  I  have  lived  through  in  Japan.  I 
slept  between  all-silk  futon  (quilts)  and  was  never  more 
rested  at  dawn. 

They  did  not  take  me  into  their  midst,  but  the  distance 
at  which  they  kept  me  was  that  of  respect,  not  strange- 
ness. The  wife  appeared  only  to  serve,  the  brothers  and 
other  children  moved  about  quietly. 

Before  breakfast  we  wandered  into  the  hills  through 
pine-groves,  reaching  a  village  completely  isolated  within 
another  valley.  A  wood-cutter  with  ax  and  saw  across 
his  shoulder  made  his  way  along  in  a  manner  seen  on 
Japanese  pictures  of  life  in  the  old  days.  Though  it  was 
but  6.30  A.M.,  women  and  boys  were  already  at  work 
gathering  pine-leaves  for  fuel. 

Three  hundred  years  before,  and  for  hundreds  of 
years  before  that  time,  this  selfsame  forest  was  the  stage 
whereon  were  enacted  deeds  of  mercy  and  depredation. 
Here  Japan's  knights  errant,  her  warriors  of  the  round 
table,  spent  their  lives  and  thought  that  what  they  knew 
was  all  there  was  to  know  in  life.  Yet  they  had  as 
limited  a  conception  of  what  it  would  be  like  in  my  time 
as  I  have  of  the  days  which  in  centuries  will  be. 

It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  Japanese  government  that  in 


198  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

but  a  few  years  it  has  made  travel  for  the  foreigner,  once 
so  dangerous,  so  safe  and  secure.  I  wandered  about 
Japan  absolutely  alone,  leaving  Kobe  without  a  foreign 
soul  knowing  where  I  was,  and  never  felt  for  a  moment 
insecure.  Thus  one  Saturday  night  I  left  my  boarding- 
house  at  a  quarter  past  midnight.  It  was  dark  in  the 
streets,  stores  were  shut,  and  only  a  few  stragglers  about. 
I  was  bound  for  Miyajima,  one  of  the  three  most  beau- 
tiful places  in  Japan.  The  second-class  train  was 
crowded  beyond  its  capacity,  and  for  nearly  an  hour  I 
stood  on  the  platform,  tired,  sleepy,  and  by  no  means 
keen  upon  going.  I  kept  pressing  the  guard  for  a  seat, 
and  finally  he  led  me  into  another  coach  and  there  made 
room  for  me.  The  train  had  no  sleeping-accommodations. 

At  about  two  past  midnight  a  crowd  of  merrymakers 
took  possession  of  the  coach  and  authority  fairly  sput- 
tered out  of  one  man's  arm.  Unusual  respect  was  shown 
him.  He  ordered  the  guard  in  such  a  way  as  'twould 
seem  would  lead  to  a  fight,  but  he  gained  what  he  was 
after.  Folk  asleep  were  wakened  and  told  to  find  other 
places  until  this  party  was  comfortably  seated.  There 
was  a  similar  case  reported  in  the  papers  of  two  officials 
holding  up  an  express  train  for  two  hours  because  their 
baggage  had  been  left  behind.  An  inquiry  was  made 
into  that  case.  Ours,  no  less  offensive,  seems  to  have 
passed  unnoticed. 

Where  all  these  people  could  possibly  be  going  to  at 
such  hours  of  the  night  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  mass 
movement  in  Japan  no  one  has  as  yet  solved.  But  by 
morning  most  of  these  travelers  had  dropped  off  like 
linotype  matrices,  each  into  his  little  groove  called  home. 
One  cannot  become  eulogistic  of  railroad  accommodation ; 
lack  of  efficient  equipment,  overcrowding,  and  a  certain 
carelessness  which  would  not  be  tolerated  elsewhere  rob 
travel  of  much  of  its  pleasure. 

I  had  taken  the  midnight  train,  as  that  would  bring 


ONOMICHI-FISHING  VILLAGE  199 

me  to  Onomichi  in  time  to  catch  the  first  boat  down  the 
Inland  Sea  for  Miyajima,  which  was  to  sail  between  eight 
and  nine  o'clock.  I  arrived  at  7.52.  At  the  station  was 
a  young  chap  who  overheard  my  questions  of  the  guard, 
and  when  I  emerged  he  was  ready  to  accompany  me. 
He  could  speak  a  little  English,  and  I  was  the  first 
foreigner  to  have  arrived  at  Onomichi  since  he  graduated 
from  the  middle  school.  I  was  the  third  white  person 
to  have  been  seen  by  him  altogether.  After  I  licked 
this  bit  of  sweetened  pride  I  found  I  had  been  given  a 
bitter  pill.  Now  they  are  all  gentlemanly  and  mean 
well,  but  they  are  all  so  bashful  as  to  become  worse  than 
useless — a  drag.  He  was  to  help  me  find  the  boat  and 
discover  the  time  of  sailing,  but  he  got  nothing  definite. 
He  then  offered  to  conduct  me  to  a  restaurant  fit  for  a 
foreigner.  He  led  me  for  a  mile;  the  eating-place  was 
closed.  So  we  returned  to  one  called  "Cafe  Happy." 
Here  I  ordered  coffee  and  an  omelet.  The  coffee  came — 
undrinkable.  It  had  a  flavor  of  limburger.  A  quarter 
of  an  hour  after  I  succeeded  by  frequent  promptings  in 
getting  the  omelet,  but  no  bread.  By  that  time  the 
hour  was  gone  and  we  had  to  rush  back  to  catch 
the  boat.  It  wouldn't  sail  for  another  hour  was  the 
announcement.  So  we  took  to  climbing  the  hills, 
which  are  scaled  by  stone  steps.  Everything  there 
was  so  "famous  in  Japan"  that  it  could  not  be  bene- 
fited by  mere  mention  here. 

This,  however,  did  not  detract  from  the  interest  in 
the  village  itself.  Dirty,  narrow,  and  busy  as  it  was,  its 
activity  threw  a  mantle  of  disregard  over  things. 

Onomichi  is  a  very  busy  port  indeed.  Fishing-smacks 
tilt  their  masts  to  the  humor  of  the  ripples  and  swells  of 
the  sea,  and  keep  their  distance  from  the  stone  wall. 
The  "strand"  is  littered  with  freight  amid  which  move 
the  men,  women,  and  children,  while  their  storehouses 
stand  about  in  as  much  disorder  and  absence  of  precon- 


200  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

ception  or  design  as  accident  could  leave  it.  Wherever 
a  man  found  room  he  built  a  home  and  doubtless  he 
loved  his  neighbor  overmuch,  for  he  left  only  room 
enough  for  him  to  pass  through. 

Withal  there  is  even  in  this  confusion  the  charm  of 
human  purpose  and  the  fitness  of  things.  It  seems  as 
though,  no  matter  what  our  standards,  let  us  but  lift 
ourselves  out  of  the  medley  and  selfishness  of  commerce 
and  need,  and  somehow  the  magic  order  of  things  weaves 
a  lure  into  our  objections.  The  lover  of  the  picturesque 
calls  it  by  that  adjective;  he  who  wants  diversion  for 
his  pains  sees  in  it  a  fascinating  strangeness;  and  even 
the  unconquerable  objector  gains  his  satisfaction  in 
having  something  real  to  object  to.  But  over  and 
above  all,  the  simple  fact  that  so  many  people  find  it 
conclusive  enough  to  their  living  and  their  happiness 
leaves  the  outsider  a  convert,  if  not  a  resident. 

All  this  time  I  have  been  waiting  for  the  ship  to  sail 
so  as  to  escape  my  companion,  anxious  to  practise  his 
English — a  thing  he  will  never  do  again  unless  another 
white  man  runs  (runs,  I  say)  across  his  path. 

The  civilian  population  stares  in  amazement  at  me. 
A  man  does  not  know  what  it  is  to  be  stared  at  until  he 
comes  to  an  unfrequented  place  in  Japan.  Children, 
with  their  usual  shyness,  gather  and  crowd  about  the 
foreigner,  who  is  an  object  of  interest  and  without  doubt 
of  disgust.  Human  nature  even  in  the  Orient  is  not 
without  its  instinct  of  self-glorification. 

The  ship  is  small,  crowded,  and  uncomfortable.  The 
majority  of  the  passengers  are  males.  A  crowd  is  aboard 
in  a  most  jovial  mood;  their  feast  of  cakes  and  sake  and 
beer  is  spread  on  the  floor  before  them.  They  eat, 
drink,  and  are  merry  in  ways  quite  Japanese.  No  men 
know  what  abandon  is  so  much  as  do  these  men.  They 
play  at  their  child-games  with  the  hilarity  of  children, 
and  they  sleep  no  less  peacefully.  A  Japanese  can 


MIYAJIMA— THE  SACRED  201 

sleep  anywhere  at  any  time  of  the  day — be  it  on  train 
or  tram,  on  his  own  shoulders  or  on  yours.  Some  were 
belowdecks,  where  the  air  had  been  breathed  over  and 
over  again  and  most  likely  will  be  to  the  end  of  time. 

The  day  drags.  Port  after  port  is  found  sequestered 
within  each  bend.  We  are  met  by  sampans  which  lash 
to  for  the  discharge  of  cargo  and  for  passengers.  If 
our  approach  is  quiet,  not  so  the  announcement.  The 
captain  on  the  bridge  pulls  the  rope  as  though  he  were 
drowning  and  the  siren  shrieks  across  the  silent  sea. 

The  Inland  Sea  is  pretty  and  illusive,  but  not  majestic. 
The  islands  gather  round  about  in  dim  invisibility.  They 
are  numerous,  but  not  various;  ever  present,  but  not 
monotonous.  They  do  not  inspire,  their  dreamy  sem- 
blance of  reality  awakes  no  after-longing.  Slightly,  it  is 
like  crossing  the  equator,  though  the  latter  is  more 
positive,  more  definite. 

Ten  hours  pass.  In  the  darkness,  the  little  ports 
creep  out  of  their  vagueness  and  into  prominence.  To 
dream  during  the  day  is  weird.  At  night  the  magic 
spell  falls  away  and  the  ports  become  more  beautiful. 
The  sea,  during  the  day  syrup-like  and  thick,  under  the 
cloak  of  night  becomes  cool,  translucent,  and  alive  with 
the  glittering  reflections  of  electric  lights.  Into  a  net  of 
these  lamps  we  steer  and  land  at  Miyajima. 

Without  much  ado  I  take  up  quarters  at  a  little 
Japanese  inn.  Its  daintiness,  cleanliness,  and  spacious- 
ness would  commend  themselves  to  the  most  fastidious. 
As  the  servant  opens  the  door  of  the  bath  to  show  me  in,  a 
faint  voice  protests  excitedly.  We  withdraw.  It  was 
the  beautiful  little  Japanese  woman  with  the  wedding 
and  engagement  ring  on  the  proper  finger  who  had  come 
down  on  the  same  boat.  It  being  summer  still,  the 
karakami  has  been  removed  and  one  can  see  across  the 
hall,  across  another  room,  across  a  little  court,  and  into 
her  room  with  its  little  balcony.  She  is  unconscious  of 


202  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

being  observed.  She  does  up  her  thick  black  hair, 
exhibiting  a  finely  shaped  white  arm  as  pretty  as 
Lucretia's.  Her  face  is  tightly  drawn,  in  reserve,  not 
selfishness;  each  feature  a  model  in  itself. 

What  silence!  Who  would  know  that  her  husband 
sat  a  little  apart,  reading  a  paper?  Not  a  word  has  been 
exchanged.  She  speaks  with  her  dainty  actions  rather 
than  with  her  tongue.  Her  face  seems  sad.  There  is  re- 
straint, not  vigor  in  her  silence;  the  suppression  of  ideas 
rather  than  their  contemplation.  The  karakami  is 
drawn  across  and  the  picture  is  shut  out  from  my  life. 

Miyajima  (Temple  Island)  is  also  known  as  Itsuku- 
shima.  Its  natural  loveliness  justifies  the  veneration  in 
which  it  is  held  by  all.  A  big  temple  ib  built  out  into 
the  sea,  standing  on  hundreds  of  piles.  At  considerable 
distance  stands  a  tremendous  torn  in  a  setting  as  pict- 
uresque as  anything  to  be  seen  in  Japan.  The  hills 
seem  to  smother  all  outer  noises  and  harshness.  They 
roll  higher  and  higher,  one  after  the  other,  like  a  great 
thunder-cloud.  And  even  the  singing  and  dancing  of 
the  geisha  do  not  seem  so  harsh  as  in  port  cities. 
It  was  late  in  September  when  I  was  there,  and  the 
suggestion  of  the  coming  autumn  made  it  still  more 
impressive. 

Though  dark  when  I  arrived,  it  was  still  early.  I 
made  my  solitary  way  along  the  beach  roadway  partly 
lit  by  pagoda  lanterns.  To  see  the  famous  torii  at  night 
is  to  see  the  incomparable.  The  road  has  been  cut 
against  the  hill  and  is  free  from  the  encroachment  of 
"curio"  shops.  So  here  in  the  candle-light,  slightly 
augmented  by  two  electric  lamps,  all  confusion  is  shut 
out  from  one's  senses  by  the  all-commanding  darkness, 
and  here  amid  the  pines  and  the  lanterns  you  stop  to 
look  out  to  sea. 

Forgetful  as  one  becomes  of  all  else  in  life,  so  one  be- 
comes conscious  of  but  five  elemental  sensations.  The 


TORTI  AND  CROSS  203 

hills,  the  lights  (or  man),  the  sea,  its  delicate  sound,  and 
the  torii.  The  gate  to  what?  The  sea  surrounds  it 
indifferently  and  has  not  need  of  it,  and  to  man  it  has 
but  symbolic  value.  That  it  is  beautiful  one  could  find 
standards  enough  to  convince  the  most  skeptical.  Its 
lines  are  to  beauty  what  wings  are  to  the  albatross. 
But  the  torii  lives.  It  is  a  symbol  of  life  and  action ;  as 
a  gate  it  stands  where  life  and  death  cross. 

But  the  remarkable  thing  is  that,  standing  apart  or 
aloof  from  man  and  passing  things,  being  gate  without 
purpose,  it  is  still  firm  in  its  architectural  relationship  to 
the  scene  about  it.  As  a  gate  pure  and  simple,  the  torii 
may  be  magnificent  or  paltry  and  ugly.  When  one  is 
made  to  walk  through  an  avenue  of  wobbly,  red-painted, 
thin-legged  torii  set  to  shrive  weaklings  of  their  sins  and 
symbolizing  that  weakness  by  its  own  infirmity — then 
the  torii  loses  even  the  simple  honesty  of  gatehood. 
But  this  torii,  devoid  of  value  as  gate,  stands  at  a  dis- 
tance and  impels  the  most  prosaic  to  admiration. 
One's  gaze  passes  through  it  even  though  the  wide  world 
round  about  offers  unhampered  visual  pilgrimage. 
Even  though  the  wide  world  is  free  of  any  emotion,  the 
eye  of  the  lover  of  the  beautiful  leads  his  desires  through 
this  torii  with  its  firm  pillars  set  in  the  limpid  waters  of 
the  sea. 

What  is  its  significance  as  symbol?  Why  was  the 
torii  selected  by  striving  primitive  man?  Surely  its 
beauty  must  have  commended  itself  to  the  primitive 
architect. 

How  does  it  compare  with  the  cross?  Let  us  place  a 
cross  out  in  the  sea  and  ask  ourselves  if  that  in  outline 
compares  well  with  the  torii.  Obviously,  the  latter 
takes  precedence.  The  cross  is  rigid,  finite,  disconsolate. 
You  do  not  know  whether  its  outstretched  arms  point 
you  to  heaven  or  to  hell.  Line  has  no  relation  to  line 
except  as  it  obstructs  or  crosses.  There  is  nothing  knit, 


204  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

nothing  co-operative.  There  is  no  support  from  the 
center  pillar  to  the  arm-ends.  The  eye  longs  to  give 
them  something  to  rest  upon.  One's  sympathy  goes 
out  to  them  and  longs  to  ease  their  weight.  In  art,  to  see 
a  human  being  so  painted  would  fill  one  with  the  pain  of 
that  other's  agony  and  reaction  against  the  torturer. 
Suffering  is  the  basic  thought  which  projected  the  cross. 
It  is  a  symbol  which  kills  joy,  it  negatives  life.  It  does 
not  stand  alone  in  any  architectural  fitness. 

But  pagans  seem  to  fear  less  man's  forgetfulness  of 
ruination.  They  leave  their  worshipers  much  more 
alone.  They  make  their  symbol,  place  it  on  the  way- 
side, and  hope  for  man  to  stumble  across  it  or  seek  it 
out  as  it  appeals  to  him. 

The  torii  is  a  gateway;  the  cross  is  finality.  As  sym- 
bol, pure  and  simple,  one  is  beauty  and  life,  the  other 
threat  and  death.  One  is  inspiring  and  lofty,  the  symbol 
of  creation;  the  other  is  a  reminder  of  the  barbarity  of 
man  which  put  a  noble-minded  idealist  to  torture  and  to 
death.  It  is  the  emblem  of  destruction,  not  creation. 
One  reminds  us  of  the  passing  of  living  matter  from  death 
to  life,  from  inactivity  to  action;  the  other  from  life  to 
death.  As  symbol,  the  more  fortunate  is  the  torii,  and 
the  pagans  the  most  fortunate  in  their  selection. 

There  is  absolute  stillness  round  about,  but  for  the 
lapping  of  the  thin  ripples  of  the  sea  as  it  makes  its  way 
inward.  No  one  is  about.  What  stands  closer  to  the 
great  unknown,  the  thing  beyond  the  reach  of  science  and 
often  so  befogged  in  superstition — what  is  the  nearest 
materialization  of  the  vastness  of  life  more  than  the  sea  ? 
That  sea  which  for  human  purpose  serves  only  as  a  means 
of  man  getting  to  man;  that  sea  which  statesmen  try  to 
talk  about  under  the  heading  of  "the  freedom  of  the 
seas."  The  sea  is  wide  and  partner  to  no  human 
selfishness,  is  free  from  all  aggression.  The  sea  is 
freedom.  It  is  the  gateway  to  the  universe. 


CLAN  VS  CONSTITUTION  205 

And  this  torii  stands  here  as  gateway  to  the  sea.  It 
symbolizes  human  emotion,  which  is  sister  to  the  sea. 
Both  are  illusive  and  beyond  interpretation.  The  more 
"truth"  each  savior  claims  to  have  discovered,  the 
greater  exactness  he  claims  for  his  sect  or  religion,  the 
more  clearly  does  he  confess  his  confusion.  So,  too,  with 
statesmen  and  their  boundaries. 

A  train  is  heard  on  the  mainland.  It  whistles  deep 
and  long,  and  emerges  slowly — a  string  of  dull  eyes. 
However  quickly  it  may  go  in  reality,  from  here  it  seems 
to  creep,  and,  though  it  may  have  actually  traveled 
miles,  it  has  here  merely  crawled  from  pillar  to  pillar  of 
the  torii.  The  spirit  of  trains  is  not  offensive  to  that  of 
the  torii.  It  is  not  in  conflict,  either.  Nothing  can  be. 
But  it  throws  light  on  the  question  of  mystery  and  the 
unknown.  What  is  perplexing  is  that  a  train  traveling 
forty  miles  an  hour  should  have  to  crawl  across  the 
length  of  a  twenty-foot  span  of  a  torii.  Where  does 
reality  begin  and  mystery  end?  A  comet  passing  thou- 
sands of  miles  a  second  would  take  a  week  to  move  across 
this  torii.  Or  is  it  all  but  the  limitation  of  human  vision 
and  perception?  Is  it  not  possible  that  science  may  yet 
span  the  universe  and  make  us  certain  of  life  on  other 
planets  as  I  was  then  of  the  speed  of  the  train?  But 
how  will  science  ever  overcome  this  foreshortening  of 
human  knowledge  into  the  limitations  of  mystery? 

Which  will  answer?     Torii  or  cross? 

Turning  from  Miyajima  across  to  the  plains  which  lie 
to  the  southwest,  we  soon  come  to  the  province  of 
Yamaguchi.  Perhaps  the  only  justification  I  have  for 
mentioning  it  here  is  that  in  the  early  days  most  of  the 
immigrants  who  drifted  across  the  Pacific  to  America 
came  from  this  district.  It  is  a  healthful  agricultural 
region,  and  though  in  method  its  people  are  still  as 
primitive  as  before  the  change  came  over  Japan,  in 
politics  they  were  the  progressives.  One  becomes  not  a 


206  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

little  mixed  in  the  use  of  terms  in  Japanese  problems, 
for  their  progress  was  toward  the  restoration  of  the  well- 
nigh  effete  imperialism.  And  Yamaguchi  being  far 
enough  away  from  Tokyo,  the  seat  of  the  Tokugawa 
Bakafu,  it  afforded  a  somewhat  safe  refuge  for  the  friends 
of  the  Emperor.  From  Hagi  on  the  west  coast  of  this 
region  have  come  several  prominent  Japanese,  foremost 
among  whom  were  the  inimitable  Prince  Ito,  Father  of 
the  "Constitution,"  and  General  Nogi.  The  old  name 
by  which  Yamaguchi  province  was  known  in  history  is 
Choshu.  The  Choshu  clan  was  one  of  the  most  potent 
factors  in  the  restoration  of  the  Emperor.  It  is  still  the 
district  controlling  the  military  affairs  of  the  country. 

The  life  of  a  stranger  anywhere  in  that  region  is  one 
of  pestering  pursuit  by  detectives.  I  got  off  at  Shimono- 
seki,  one  day,  en  route  to  Nagasaki.  It  is  a  two-minute 
ferry  ride  across  the  straits.  A  detective  approached 
me:  "Gentleman,  I  am  a  detective.  Show  me  your 
passport."  "I  am  a  resident  of  Kobe,"  I  protested, 
"and  am  on  my  way  to  Nagasaki."  But  I  had  to  pro- 
duce my  passport.  As  soon  as  I  stepped  ashore  at  Moji 
I  was  again  approached  in  the  same  manner,  and  again 
had  to  produce  my  passport.  As  soon  as  I  boarded  the 
train,  the  same  sort  of  demand  was  made.  For  some 
strange  reason  I  was  immune  during  my  stay  at  Naga- 
saki, the  farthest  end  of  the  island  of  Kyushu.  But  on 
my  return  to  Moji  and  Shimonoseki  there  was  no  peace. 
The  last  time,  on  the  train,  I  spoke  to  the  detective  in 
Japanese,  somewhat  harshly,  and  absolutely  refused  to 
show  my  pedigree.  He  slunk  away  like  a  whipped  boy. 

In  the  mean  time  I  had  succeeded  in  seeing  Nagasaki. 
It  is  pretty  enough,  but  presents  that  strange  phenomenon 
which  to  my  knowledge  has  never  yet  been  discussed  in 
books.  Why  a  city  should  be  prominent  during  one 
period  of  a  country's  development  and  fall  into  neglect 
during  a  later  period,  when  the  physical  conditions  seem 


NAGASAKI  207 

to  be  more  or  less  the  same,  is  as  interesting  a  study  as 
the  question  of  individual  success  and  failure. 

Nagasaki  was  once  the  finest  city  in  Japan,  more 
closely  linked  with  the  western  world  than  Osaka  and 
Kobe.  In  the  days  when  Spain  ruled  the  world,  Naga- 
saki was  the  point  of  contact.  During  the  three  hun- 
dred years  of  Japan's  seclusion  Nagasaki  alone  afforded 
a  pinhole  of  light  from  the  outer  world.  Through  the 
Dutch  at  Deshima,  a  small  restricted  district  in  which 
they  were  permitted  to  dwell  under  conditions  regarded 
as  extremely  humiliating,  Japanese  gained  what  little 
knowledge  of  science  and  medicine  trickled  in.  Since 
the  restoration  Nagasaki  has  retained  some  of  this 
prominence,  but  gained  little  compensation  in  the  way 
of  commercial  advantage.  Nagasaki  is  now  little  more 
than  a  name  and  a  coaling-station.  Offered  the  position 
of  editor  of  the  Nagasaki  Press,  I  turned  it  away,  feel- 
ing instinctively  that  there  was  little  hope  for  one  lost 
in  this  ancient  city,  little  prospect  for  his  future. 
14 


XIII 

COMMERCIAL    JAPAN — OSAKA 

1TUATED  at  a  point  not  much  less  favorable 
to  commerce  than  Kobe,  Osaka  has  always 
been  the  main  avenue  of  trade  in  Japan  to 
and  from  the  capital,  whether  that  was  at 
Nara  or  at  Kyoto.  Yet,  looked  upon  from 
a  pragmatic  or  a  foreign  point  of  view,  it  is  not  the  kind 
of  place  to  which  one  should  set  out,  breakfastless,  at 
seven  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Natives  will  be  fully 
awake  to  the  possibilities  of  trade,  the  electric  inter- 
urban  line  running  from  Kobe  to  Osaka  will  be  jammed. 
Japanese  don't  know  what  it  is  to  try  to  gain  mo- 
mentum or  to  slacken  speed.  They  run  their  shops, 
their  trams,  and  their  national  reformations  in  the  same 
jerky,  violent  fearlessness.  It  is  not  so  much  courage 
as  childish  carelessness.  They  are  unused  to  the  toys 
westernism  has  placed  in  their  hands  and  are  oblivious 
of  consequent  dangers.  So  we  shot  over  the  unguarded 
thoroughfares  as  though  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a 
law  of  inertia.  The  streets  sounded  to  the  shrill  whistle, 
not  so  much  warning  as  threatening  pedestrians. 

It  was  a  chill,  misty  morning.  The  sun  was  up,  but 
weak.  Not  so  the  people.  In  the  crowded  suburbs, 
station  after  station  despatched  and  received  busy  folk. 
Every  one  is  always  carrying  some  burden  on  the  back, 
be  it  baby  or  bundle.  It  seems  that  provision  is  made, 
in  Japan,  for  every  member  of  the  family  having  a  baby 
to  carry. 


MANCHESTER  OR  CHICAGO?  209 

We  shot  past  village  after  village.  The  serrated 
mountain  range  running  east  and  west  is  picturesque. 
Not  so  Osaka,  which  is  reached  in  an  hour  and  a  quarter 
after  a  twenty-mile  journey. 

Englishmen  call  Osaka  the  Manchester  of  Japan,  and 
some  Americans,  the  Chicago  of  Japan.  I  am  one  who 
is  content  to  leave  what  glory  there  may  be  in  such  a 
comparison  to  the  credit  of  England.  It  is  a  city  of 
1,395,823  people,  the  second  in  size  to  Tokyo,  and  has 
300,768  households,  each  having  on  an  average  4.61 
persons. 

The  city  seems  cut  into  a  thousand  islands  round  which 
swerve  the  black,  muddy  waters  of  the  Yodogawa.  Fully 
a  dozen  bridges  are  crossed  in  a  single  journey,  and  for 
five  sen  one  can  have  the  pleasure  of  crossing  as  many 
more  as  the  stoutest-hearted  could  not  put  behind  him 
in  an  ordinary  lifetime — metaphorically  speaking.  The 
banks  are  black,  quagmire-like;  the  river  subject  to  the 
tides  and  flood.  Punts,  rafts,  steamboats  of  almost  every 
size  and  description  crowd  the  passage,  but  on  the  whole 
the  waters  are  too  shallow  for  anything  larger  than 
hand-propelled  craft.  The  commonest  of  these  is 
unique.  A  long  plank  is  placed  on  deck.  The  boat- 
swain pries  the  bottom  of  the  river  with  a  long  bamboo 
pole.  He  retreats  to  the  fore  part  of  the  junk,  his  pole 
over  the  side,  reaches  the  bottom  and  pushes  until  he 
has  walked  the  length  of  the  plank.  In  that  way  he 
fools  his  kami  (god)  and  uses  up  the  forty-odd  years  of 
life  placed  at  his  disposal. 

Generally  a  fine  mist  hangs  over  the  city.  The 
squalor  and  untidiness  are  even  more  real  than  apparent. 
Beggars  and  minstrels  pass  in  stately  leisureliness  in  and 
out  of  the  narrow  alleys;  some  in  flowing  black  kimonos, 
with  big  straw  hats  over  their  ears  and  eyes,  one  in  gold 
and  tinsel,  bare-headed,  blowing  on  an  unwilling  conch- 
shell.  Boys  up  to  their  groins  in  the  slime  of  the  river- 


2io  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

bed  search  for  eels.  And  the  never-ceasing  pressure  of 
crowds  courses  through  the  streets. 

Much  as  one  is  impressed  by  the  size  of  Osaka,  a 
certain  provincialism  difficult  of  analysis  and  still  merely 
an  Orientalism  amuses  the  visitor.  It  is  without  the 
least  doubt  a  metropolis.  Ford  taxis  dash  about  among 
the  trams  and  jinrikishas,  electric  signs  blaze  forth  their 
self-praise — yet  in  front  of  the  railway  station,  astir 
with  travelers,  stands  a  great  crowd  of  men  and  women, 
each  with  an  imitation  branch  of  cherry-blossoms,  as- 
sembled to  say  farewell  to  some  friend  or  relative.  The 
tense  used  is  merely  the  historical  present.  They  are 
not  still  there,  but  they  might  be — and  what  things 
might  be  are  a  far  guess  in  this  strange  world. 

Ask  any  waiter  in  any  restaurant  what  places  of  in- 
terest are  to  be  found,  and  he  will  immediately  direct  you 
to  Shinshaibashi — the  main  street.  To  walk  in  Osaka 
when  the  streets  are  dry  is  to  eat  one's  allotment  of  dirt 
before  wearing  out  a  rin's  worth  of  shoe-leather.  To 
do  so  when  it  rains  requires  a  pair  of  stilts.  Street  paving 
is  still  undreamed  of  in  the  catalogue  of  things  modern  in 
Japan.  A  street  in  Kobe,  Osaka,  Yokohama,  or  Tokyo 
during  a  rain  is  a  picture  of  Noah's  world  after  the  flood. 
So  one  trams  it  these  days  in  the  Land  of  the  Rising  Sun. 
Mayor  Johnson's  two-cent  fare  scheme  was  ideal,  but  it 
lacked  one  essential — cheap  labor.  Labor  must  be  cheap 
here  in  spite  of  the  increased  cost  of  living,  or  there  would 
not  be  from  three  to  four  conductors  to  a  car.  It  costs 
five  sen  (two  and  one-half  cents)  to  ride  all  day  in  Osaka 
— and  when  you  buy  a  bookful  of  tickets  you  can  do  so 
for  very  much  less. 

I  reached  my  objective  soon  enough.  It  was  a  narrow 
little  thoroughfare  with  but  an  occasional  jinrikisha  to 
disturb  the  early-morning  shoppers.  From  roof  to  roof 
the  shopkeepers  have  already  drawn  their  white  cloth 
strips  across  the  street  to  filter  the  sun's  rays.  Though 


THE  GREAT  CLEARING-HOUSE  211 

the  morning  was  still  gray,  not  so  was  the  display  of 
wares.  Everything  was  wide  open,  the  stock  attesting 
to  the  wealth  of  the  city  and  the  taste  of  the  people. 
Through  this  narrow  byway  one  wanders  unsolicited 
and  leaves  the  merchant  unoffended  if  one  prices  with- 
out purchasing.  Osaka  is  the  great  clearing-house  of 
wants  for  Japan.  Everything  it  possesses  manifests 
that  phase  of  its  nature.  Its  pleasures  abound  to  keep 
in  check  its  resentment  against  being  over-busy. 

The  organization  of  their  business  methods,  viewed 
from  the  angle  of  the  stranger  on  the  street,  is  more 
spontaneous  than  planned.  There  is  the  difference 
between  a  prairie  field  of  wild  flowers  and  a  horticult- 
urist's garden.  There  are  no  centers  here.  You  do 
not  feel  that  you  have  come  into  a  city  built  on  pur- 
pose, as  was  Kyoto.  It  seems  as  though,  when  Hide- 
yoshi  announced  his  intentions  of  building  his  castle- 
fortress  here,  the  rush  of  merchants  made  planning 
an  impossibility. 

At  that  early  hour  the  street  presented  itself  as  few 
streets  do  in  Japan.  There  was  a  touch  of  Sunday 
serenity,  without  its  repressiveness,  and  never  was 
spring  so  soft  in  all  the  days  in  Japan.  By  nine  o'clock 
that  softness  was  all  gone,  vanished  as  quickly  as  the 
loveliness  of  the  cherry-blossom.  A  street  running  at 
right  angles  to  it,  and  much  broader,  was  agog  with  life. 
It  was  the  theater  street.  A  crowd  of  old  women,  young 
women,  and  not  a  few  men  and  babies  stood  in  line  while 
a  host  of  assistants  were  stamping  tickets  preparatory 
to  the  opening  of  the  theater.  All  is  done  with  a  lack 
of  concentration  conducive  to  idleness  and  monotony  of 
action.  The  Orientals  could  accomplish  in  an  hour 
what  they  take  ten  in  doing  if  only  they  set  themselves 
about  it  systematically.  Have  they  not  done  politically 
and  industrially  as  much  in  a  few  years  as  it  took  us 
ages  to  develop?  It  is  this  drawing,  dragging  out  which 


212  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

is  the  obvious  flaw  in  their  make-up.  The  theater  helps 
prove  it.  No  western  person  with  any  interest  other 
than  ethnological  would  put  up  with  the  things  they 
call  entertainment.  It  starts  at  nine  in  the  morning  and 
ends  near  midnight.  If  the  actors  only  moved  a  little 
faster  the  whole  of  it  could  be  done  in  two  hours. 

But  we  haven't  been  inside  yet.  They  are  all  still 
waiting  for  the  theater  to  commence;  so  I  drift  into  a 
little  restaurant  whose  keeper  seems  to  know  English. 
His  establishment  bore  the  imposing  sign,  "Sunrise 
Restaurant."  A  sign-board  below  proffered  the  further 
information,  something  about  "Syrvyse, "  which  I  inter- 
preted to  mean  service.  But  despite  its  title,  it  seems  I 
looked  in  from  the  opposite  end  of  the  telescope,  and  was 
viewing  the  "sunrise"  from  the  sunset,  for  though  now 
near  9.30,  there  was  as  little  proof  of  life  as  though  it 
were  midnight. 

The  world  is  made  for  the  tourist.  For  him  every- 
thing is  open  and  time  is  never  wasted.  Ask  any  one  in 
the  wide  world  you  meet  to  direct  you  to  a  place  of  in- 
terest and  he  doesn't  know,  but  sends  you  to  the  tourist 
office.  So  here.  A  gentleman  could  suggest  but  one 
cure  for  my  curiosity — Tenoji  Park.  But  one  wanders 
from  one  place  to  another  in  Japan  without  seeing  any 
change.  The  park  is  no  more  than  what  we  call  a  Square 
— and  much  less.  All  you  can  say  is  that  on  this  spot 
no  one  cut  the  trees  down  nor  erected  any  private 
buildings.  The  absence  of  grass  always  leaves  the 
foreigner  unsatisfied  with  Japanese  parks.  The  whole 
is  stony  and  bare.  Add  a  few  low  fences,  an  exhibition 
building,  and  the  inevitable  monkey  zoo,  and  all  is  com- 
plete. Upon  the  balcony  of  the  exhibition  building  a 
brass  band  is  doing  something,  and  inside  is  a  limited 
display  of  business  products — a  commercial  exhibit  held 
twice  a  year. 

While  looking  at  some  of  the  products  here  (which 


GRAFTING  OF   EAST  AND  WEST  213 

need  no  special  mention)  I  was  addressed  by  a  little  per- 
son in  English.  He  invited  me  to  his  section  and  asked 
me  to  wait  half  an  hour  and  he  would  guide  me  about 
Osaka.  In  the  mean  time  we  discussed  every  topic 
imaginable,  from  commodities  to  international  peace. 

His  duties  done,  he  strolled  out  with  me.  The  city 
seemed  transformed.  A  word  here  and  a  word  there 
and  customs,  manners,  beliefs,  and  aspirations  open 
their  blinds  and  reveal  a  wealth  of  interest  and  life 
beneath  this  unclean,  uninviting  exterior.  He  led  me  to 
the  home  of  a  friend,  somewhere  in  the  heart  of  the  city. 
A  western  structure  fronting  the  street,  it  was  ex- 
quisitely Japanese  in  the  rear.  This  is  the  essence  of 
Japan's  modernism.  We  entered  a  little  court,  clean 
and  quiet,  and  he  called  softly.  Presently  a  little  page 
appeared  and  asked  us  into  the  foreign  wing  of  the  build- 
ing, where,  after  removing  our  shoes,  we  took  uncom- 
fortable little  chairs  upon  which  one  can  only  half  sit 
— and  waited. 

The  time  we  waited  affords  me  here  an  opportunity 
of  digressing.  The  chairs  are  generally  circular,  with  a 
diameter  of  about  twelve  inches.  Now  how  can  there 
be  comfort  in  sitting  on  a  foot  of  space  with  a  six-inch 
back  for  support?  The  gentleman  appeared  and  asked 
us  above.  The  lower  part  of  this  foreign  wing  is  given 
over  to  offices;  the  upper,  to  a  large  reception-room 
neatly  furnished  in  ultra-modern  style.  A  piano  and 
several  other  western  instruments,  velvet  curtains,  soft 
carpet,  wicker  wainscoting — a  spacious,  quiet,  and  restful 
room.  Two  portraits  in  oil  (mother  and  father,  most 
likely),  three  landscapes  in  oil  and  two  in  silk  em- 
broidery hung  upon  the  walls.  Things  were  in  much 
better  taste  than  in  a  good  many  western  homes,  yet 
incongruous  because  clearly  foreign  to  the  owners. 

We  sat  for  fully  an  hour.  The  host  talked  in  English 
in  sudden  spurts ;  the  rest  of  the  time  I  simply  listened, 


2i4  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

listened  until  it  seemed  I  was  hearing  a  stream  murmur- 
ing in  the  distance. 

Everything  was  according  to  form.  I  had  no  room  for 
objection  on  that  score.  But  it  was  the  form  I  objected 
to.  Japanese  tea  was  served  and  followed  by  a  cup  of 
coffee.  It  was  placed  before  me,  but  no  one  as  much  as 
recommended  it  to  me  as  a  cure  for  drowsiness.  I  was 
beginning  to  believe  it  would  last  for  ever  when,  with  a 
nod  and  sudden  exclamation,  as  though  the  talk  had 
come  to  a  satisfactory  conclusion,  he  turned  to  me  and 
said:  "I  promise  to  guide  you  about  Osaka.  Are  you 
busy  this  evening?"  Now,  though  I  have  seen  not  a 
little  of  the  world,  for  real,  genuine  good-fellowship 
none  compares  with  the  Japanese.  Here  I  was  more  of 
a  stranger  to  them  than  I  could  possibly  have  been  any- 
where in  the  world  gone  civilized,  yet  they  took  me  at 
face  value.  We  had  become  friends,  and  they  were 
going  to  prove  it. 

Conscious  of  my  being  interested  in  the  interior  of  a 
Japanese  home,  my  host  said  his  friend  would  show  me 
through.  "But  my  house  so  dirty,"  he  pleaded,  not,  I 
fear,  without  affectation,  or  else  with  a  national  mis- 
understanding of  what  the  word  dirty  means. 

Not  all  the  mansions  of  the  world  equal  in  beauty  the 
simplicity  of  a  Japanese  interior.  The  absence  of  hang- 
ings, of  bric-a-brac,  of  all  incumbrances,  leave  one's  feel- 
ings in  exquisite  peace.  Whatever  one  says  against  the 
modernization  of  Japan — and  much  of  it  justly — one 
thing  cannot  escape  the  observer:  the  Japanese  have 
not  made  that  worst  of  mistakes — ruining  the  dignity  of 
their  houses  by  overcrowding  them  with  importations. 
If  they  want  things  of  the  West,  they  have  the  good 
sense  or  bad  sense  to  build  separate  wings  for  them.  But 
their  own  homes  they  leave  chaste  and  unspoiled. 

A  western  home,  unless  it  is  in  extremely  good  taste, 
bruises  one's  feelings  at  every  turn.  There  are  so  many 


DOLLS  AND  CROWDS  215 

things  to  see  that  one  forgets  to  be.  We  buy  things 
from  all  over  the  world,  remove  them  from  their  natural, 
and  exhibit  them  amid  foreign,  settings.  But  here  in 
Japan  the  essence  of  home  spirit  is  rest  from  confusion. 
One  might  as  well  expect  a  flower  to  bloom  in  an  un- 
weeded  garden  as  peace  in  a  house  overcrowded  with 
artificiality. 

Just  as  I  have  never  been  in  a  house  more  thrilling 
in  its  simplicity,  so  have  I  never  looked  upon  a  baby's 
playthings  more  fabulously  enchanting.  A  corner  of 
the  living-room  had  been  set  aside  for  the  two-year-old 
baby  girl's  dolls  and  playthings.  It  was  a  shrinelike 
setting,  a  platform  with  three  steps  leading  up  to  it,  on 
every  inch  of  which  had  been  set  some  gilt  and  lac- 
quered and  silked  doll.  The  whole  was  so  lavish,  so 
profuse,  it  bewildered.  But  for  order  and  arrangement 
that  little  baby  was  seeing  and  receiving  impressions 
which  will  doubtless  affect  its  entire  life. 

At  night  the  crowds,  which  surge  through  the  city 
streets,  are  more  like  floods  than  streams.  It  is  im- 
possible to  get  away  from  them.  In  Japan  the  crowd 
is  an  altogether  different  phenomenon  from  what  it  is 
in  other  parts  of  the  world.  The  streets  are  void  of 
traffic.  With  the  exception  of  the  street-cars  and  a 
slowly  increasing  number  of  motor-cars,  wheeled  traffic 
is  limited  to  man-pulling  wagonettes.  Yet  the  crowd 
fills  every  bit  of  available  space.  Not  only  space  filling, 
but  interlocking,  goes  on,  a  weaving  of  human  shuttles, 
each  with  a  thread  of  its  own  until  it  seems  to  become  an 
entanglement  against  the  understanding  of  the  outsider. 
You  are  not  in  a  current  with  which  you  must  drift, 
but  in  a  swirl  of  conflicting  eddies.  Every  one  goes  in 
every  possible  direction.  You  move  among  them,  but 
never  with  them,  yet  they  among  themselves  seem 
to  be  the  most  interwoven  ONE  I  have  ever  seen  in  any 
crowd. 


216  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

You  feel  this  oneness  of  Japan,  this  nationality,  this 
clinging,  this  fitting  into  and  fitness  of  things.  It  is 
one  swarm,  indivisible,  one  color,  one  craze.  That  is 
why  a  Japanese  professor  visiting  America  wrote  so 
strangely  of  our  American  crowds.  He  objected  to 
crowd  influence,  to  the  swaying  of  the  mass  one  way  and 
then  another,  and  to  that  force  carrying  leaders  and 
followers  in  its  wayward,  whimsical  course.  That  is 
true,  because  in  American  and  European  crowds  there 
are  cross  influences.  In  Japan,  none.  Japan  is  whole 
in  good  and  in  bad.  Japan  is  capable  of  storming  for 
great  purposes,  but  also  of  festering,  of  becoming  stag- 
nant. Once  it  did,  and  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
not  a  drop  of  fresh  water  came  into  it.  Now  it  is  coursing 
along,  unmixed  and  unmoved  emotionally.  That  night 
it  was  celebrating  the  birth  of  an  emperor,  the  son  of 
the  breaker  of  dams.  Emperor  Meiji  opened  the  gates 
and  let  out  the  stagnant  waters  of  Japan.  And  these 
vast  crowds  move  along  much  as  though  they  do  not 
exactly  know  where,  but  have  confidence  in  their  captain. 

Japanese  in  a  crowd  are  like  boys  playing  in  a  school- 
yard. Laughter,  jabbering,  babies  snorting,  crying, 
shoes  scraping,  and  the  grating  noise  of  the  iron  wheels 
make  a  trolley  trip  in  Japan  anything  but  delightful. 
Japanese  haven't  such  dislike  of  crowding  as  have  we. 
With  us  a  crowd  is  tight  by  virtue  of  a  desire  on  the 
part  of  each  individual  to  be  as  far  from  his  neighbor  as 
possible;  a  Japanese  reverses  it.  And  what  is  worse, 
each  individual  brings  with  him  garden  truck,  square 
boxes  on  his  back  which  would  put  a  woman's  hatbox 
to  shame,  and  every  sort  of  article  which  enters  into  the 
list  of  implements  indigenous. 

The  theater  district  is  ablaze  with  lights  and  astir 
with  people.  If  you  go  to  the  finest  cherry-dance  hall 
you  will  find  everything  in  the  most  refined  and  artistic 
taste.  During  the  Naniwa  Odori  (or  Osaka  Dance) 


TEA  CEREMONY  217 

this  is  the  center  of  attraction.  The  little  program  is  in 
English  as  well  as  in  Japanese.  That  is  proper  catering, 
and  a  foot-note  says:  "Japanese  tea  will  be  served  by 
geisha  girls  at  the  luxurious  waiting-re  om.  Throughout 
the  interior  you  are  not  troubled  by  taking  off  your 
shoes."  And  this  was  just  as  advertised.  Chairs 
stood  round  a  platform.  Upon  the  mats  moved  two 
little  girls  of  about  eight  years  of  age.  They  were 
cunning  and  playful  and  gorgeously  kimonoed  and  be- 
mannered.  They  brought  us  each  a  little  basket  with 
sweets  on  a  plate  as  our  present.  Then  two  geisha 
entered  in  all  their  peacock  splendor,  seated  themselves 
before  the  hibachi  (brazier) ,  and  commenced  making  tea. 
The  finest  possible  tea-leaves  had  been  ground  to  powder 
and  taken  up  with  a  little  long-handled  wooden  scoop- 
spoon.  Hot  water  dipped  from  the  kettle  on  the 
brazier  was  poured  over  them — and  tea  was  done.  Each 
of  us  was  served  separately  and  in  turn.  Though  the 
beverage  is  made  of  tea-leaves,  the  use  of  the  word  con- 
veys an  altogether  wrong  idea.  A  diluted  mixture  of 
spinach  finely  ground  gives  a  nearer  approach  to  proper 
nomenclature.  It  is  as  green  and  as  thick  and  not  any 
more  palatable  or  refreshing. 

Nor  does  the  author  of  the  famous  Book  of  Tea  assist 
the  alien  in  forming  any  clear  conception  of  what  the 
Tea  Ceremony  is.  What  it  was,  perhaps;  but  to-day  no 
one  but  the  devotee  abstracting  himself  from  everything 
else  worth  while  could  possibly  fathom  its  meaning  or 
learn  its  art.  What  the  average  visitor  sees  of  it  is 
about  as  much  of  the  real  ceremony  as  an  interview  with 
the  Tenno  would  acquaint  him  with  Shintoism.'' 

We  immediately  repaired  to  the  auditorium.  Hardly 
had  we  seated  ourselves  and  scanned  the  elaborate  spec- 
tacle before  us  when  from  below  our  balcony  issued  two 
streams  of  gorgeous  daintiness.  They  swayed  rhyth- 
mically along  the  narrow  aisle  toward  the  stage,  turned 


218  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

toward  each  other  and,  meeting,  crossed  and  interlaced 
in  a  riotous  display  of  scarlet  and  motion.  But  for  the 
melancholy  droning  and  drumming  of  discordant  sounds 
the  scene  would  have  been  incomparable. 

The  theater,  or  dance-hall,  as  it  is  called,  is  not  like 
ours,  though  the  paneled  ceiling  is  distinctly  western. 
The  auditorium  is  square.  The  audience  is  placed 
on  the  main  floor  and  upon  a  balcony  at  the  rear, 
the  less  expensive  places  being  below.  On  an  ele- 
vated recess  built  into  the  right  and  left  walls  at  right 
angles  with  the  stage  sit  the  singers  and  drummers  and 
samisen  (guitar)  players — all  women.  The  geisha  enter 
upon  the  stage  immediately  below  them  by  way  of  a 
long  platform  from  the  rear. 

It  seems  that  if,  according  to  Nietzsche,  melancholy 
music  is  a  sign  of  decadence,  this  Japanese  music  is  the 
best  proof  of  it.  I  believe  it  represents  the  period  in 
which  Japan  lay  dormant.  Nor  can  I  imagine  a  reju- 
venated Japan  without  the  discard  of  this  unexpressive, 
unthinking,  meaningless  noise. 

The  dancing  itself  is  exquisite.  That  there  should 
have  been  trifling  disturbances  to  spoil  the  whole  is  but 
another  orientalism.  As  with  many  things  here,  the 
ludicrous  and  disharmonious  are  so  frequently  and  inno- 
cently brought  in  with  the  most  serious  efforts  as  often 
to  mar  the  beauty  or  add  to  the  realism  of  the  whole. 
Take  the  shifting  of  the  scenes.  No  curtain  is  dropped, 
but  the  various  artifices  of  stagecraft  are  exhibited  to  the 
education  if  not  pleasure  of  the  audience.  It  was  absurd 
to  see  trees  get  up  and  walk  off  stage,  houses  move  side- 
ways out  of  the  way,  wistaria-blossoms  suddenly  drop 
from  above,  or  a  crouching  individual  run  behind  the 
dancing-girls,  placing  branches  of  artificial  cherry- 
blossom  behind  each  so  she  might  have  one  at  hand  to 
pick  up  when  the  dance  required  it.  As  the  girls  dis- 
ported themselves,  a  gentleman  in  black  kimono  came 


NANIWA  ODORI  219 

on  and  quickly  removed  the  baskets  as  they  put  them 
down,  thus  for  the  moment  becoming  the  center  of  at- 
traction. And  during  the  whole  performance  a  boy, 
whose  duty  it  was  to  draw  aside  a  curtain  for  the  geisha 
to  pass,  stood  with  his  head  poked  out,  grinning  his 
widest  possible  grin  at  the  audience. 

By  a  very  strong  effort  one  could  imagine  these  dis- 
tractions as  lending  reality  to  the  scene.  It  could  be 
pretended  that  they,  being  in  black,  were  humble  care- 
takers at  the  shrine.  This,  of  course,  applies  to  one  with 
an  unsophisticated  imagination. 

Geisha-dancing  is  in  a  sense  the  loveliest  living  art  in 
Japan.  The  professional  dances  come  but  once  a  year, 
at  the  time  of  the  cherry-blossoms,  and  are  as  short- 
lived as  the  blossoms  themselves.  The  dance  has  some- 
what of  ceremonial  significance.  Yet  it  is  only  a 
dance.  The  Japanese  love  to  ceremonialize,  and  all 
their  arts  center  in  temples  and  shrines. 

A  performance  lasts  exactly  an  hour — and  is  repeated 
several  times  a  day.  Longer  than  that  it  could  not  sus- 
tain any  one's  interest,  not  even  that  of  the  Japanese. 
The  movements  are  much  the  same  throughout — slow, 
regular,  and  soft.  Occasionally  the  dancers  stamp 
their  feet,  and  sometimes  they  set  off  on  a  mischievous 
gait — just  a  dash  of  impertinence  to  lend  spice  to  the 
occasion.  But  they  are  such  modest  little  maids.  So 
there  is  neither  abandon  nor  restraint,  and  interest  lags 
in  a  trice.  There  was  even  a  little  discord.  The  girls 
didn't  always  come  up  in  time  and  were  often  out  of 
step.  But  seen  for  the  first  time,  when  the  stream  of 
gorgeously  kimonoed  girls  suddenly  makes  its  appear- 
ance, it  overwhelms  you  into  surrender  with  sympathy 
and  interest.  Yet  the  simplicity  of  the  dance  leaves  no 
room  for  dissertation. 

But  there  is  more  than  this  odori  in  Osaka.  The  city 
has  its  foreign  devotees  no  less  than  any  other  city,  and 


220  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

on  a  clear  autumn  day,  when  one  has  to  contend  with 
neither  slush  nor  dust,  the  wide  rivers  and  the  hundreds 
of  bridges  are  indeed  attractive  to  look  upon.  At  night 
— almost  any  clear  night — the  lights  can  be  seen  for 
miles,  reflected  in  the  water.  In  the  better  districts  one 
gets  occasional  glimpses  of  a  Japan  now  hard  to  find. 

Whatever  else  is  rare  in  Japan,  temples  there  are 
aplenty.  Tennoji  is  the  largest  in  Osaka.  But  the 
only  advantage  it  affords  is  in  an  excellent  view  from  the 
top  of  the  five-storied  pagoda.  The  city  stretches  be- 
neath it  for  miles  and  miles,  and  its  gray  tiles  resemble  a 
sunless  sea. 

But  this  pagoda  has  been  outdone  in  modern  Japan 
by  an  ugly  monstrosity  of  iron  standing  on  four  bow- 
legs.  A  slow-going  elevator  makes  its  way  up  and  down, 
much  as  to  say:  "Oh,  there  they  are  again.  And  what 
will  they  see  when  they  get  to  the  top?  A  new  smoke- 
stack, I  suppose."  And,  as  though  in  imitation  of  the 
big  and  little  rocks  at  Yamada  Ise,  strangely  called  the 
Husband  and  Wife  rocks,  which  the  Japanese  have 
linked  with  a  straw  rope,  commercial  Japan  has  hung  a 
cable  across  from  this  iron  monster  to  a  smaller  structure, 
and  they  who  fail  to  be  thrilled  by  the  ungainly  imita- 
tion of  the  Eiffel  Tower  can  have  themselves  swung 
across  the  narrow  street. 

When  you  descend,  you  are  again  amid  the  dirt  and 
filth,  breathing  evil  smells  coming  from  the  neglected 
convenience  stations  which  are  a  disgrace  to  Japan. 
Whatever  may  be  said  against  the  hardness  of  western 
commercialism,  one  thing  in  its  favor  is  that  it  has  laid 
sewers  for  us.  And  not  till  Japan  has  done  so  will  clean- 
liness and  decency  be  possible. 

One  has  but  to  be  in  Osaka  after  a  severe  flood,  such  as 
occurred  in  the  autumn  of  1917,  to  see  the  wretched 
conditions  in  which  its  industrial  population  dwells. 
Like  rats  on  a  sinking  ship,  droves  of  frightened  people 


THE  STOCK-EXCHANGE  221 

sought  the  dikes  of  the  river.  For  miles  along  the  open 
country  improvised  shacks  and  tents  staged  a  scene  of 
tragic  suffering.  Yet  that  was,  after  all,  not  much  worse 
than  the  thousands  of  hovels  which  everywhere  disfigure 
the  topography  of  Japan. 

The  state  of  flux  in  which  modern  Japan  now  moves 
leaves  all  attempts  at  studying  the  problem  in  the  realm 
of  speculation.  Industrially,  Osaka  is  the  heart  of 
Japan.  Its  factories  cloud  the  sky  with  smoke  and  its 
stock-exchange  controls  the  pulse  of  the  Orient.  An 
exchange  is  quite  a  different  proposition  in  Japan  from 
what  it  is  in  America.  The  visitors'  "gallery"  is  more 
open  to  the  public  than  a  zoo,  and  one  has  some  difficulty 
discovering  which  is  bull  and  which  bear.  But  for  the 
policeman  I  might  have  wandered  into  the  lions'  section. 
Two  officers  stood  at  the  wicket  and  barred  my  way.  So 
I  turned  back  into  the  crowd  from  which  I  had  come, 
stumbling  over  the  unexpected  steps  in  the  inclined  floor. 
The  crowd  was  thick.  No  seats  about,  the  men  stood 
close  together — now  more  interested  in  the  foreigner  than 
the  market.  Well  they  might  be.  But  when  the  mo- 
mentary interest  vanished  they  wrere  as  forgetful  of 
foreigners  as  the  spirit  of  speculation  is  native  to  them. 
Between  them  and  the  gamblers  was  only  the  slope  in 
the  floor.  That  afternoon  things  were  tame.  The 
"animals"  had  eaten  their  fill  during  the  wild  rampa- 
geous days  before  the  rice  riots,  and  though  one  might 
think  the  lean  period  would  intensify  their  hunger,  the 
whip  of  riot  had  subdued  them  somewhat.  The  "auc- 
tioneer" from  his  pulpit  suddenly  advanced  his  offering, 
whereupon  the  speculators  gathered  round  him  like  the 
lions  before  Daniel,  but  his  intrepid  self-composure 
kept  them  at  bay.  They  screamed  in  his  face  and  shook 
their  fingers  at  him;  a  moment  more  and  he  must 
certainly  perish.  But  suddenly  the  irate  mob  disin- 
tegrates, and  the  unfed  pack  falls  apart  indifferently. 


222  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

The  door  to  the  street  is  open  and  the  messengers  course 
in  and  out,  while  upon  the  narrow  gallery  running  round 
the  chamber  others  chalk  the  changes  upon  the  boards. 
Immediately  before  the  pit  is  another  device,  peculiarly 
Japanese,  which  keeps  the  stranger  guessing.  The  boys 
twirl  the  strips  of  metal  as  though  a  guessing  contest 
were  on,  and  the  excited  brokers  watch  them  with 
intense  interest. 

Just  as  from  the  top  of  the  pagoda  one  sees  ancient 
Japan,  and  from  the  top  of  the  steel  tower  modern 
industrial  Japan,  so  from  the  exchange  one  looks  straight 
down  into  the  turmoil  which  threatens  future.  Japan. 

I  was  to  visit  a  glass-factory  in  Osaka  at  the  invitation 
of  the  son  of  the  editor  of  one  of  the  commercial  journals 
of  Osaka.  His  sweet,  round-faced  mother  received  me 
cordially;  tea  was  served;  and  then  she  had  a  present 
for  me — a  fan,  an  artificial  flower,  a  small  toy  fan,  and  a 
tiny  bottle  of  perfume.  When  we  departed  she  wrapped 
the  candy-suckers  I  had  not  eaten  in  a  piece  of  paper  and 
handed  them  to  me. 

The  glass-factory  was  not  far  away.  From  the  street 
no  one  would  have  suspected  its  existence.  Though  not 
very  large,  it  had  the  greatest  out-turn  of  any  in  Japan. 
Ten  thousand  bottles  were  turned  out  a  day  in  the  old 
way.  Tiny,  dwarfed  little  bodies  of  what  should  be 
boys  were,  while  working,  stripped  to  the  waist,  and  the 
pressure  at  which  they  were  kept  at  work  was  guarantee 
against  even  a  moment's  loss  of  time.  But  machinery 
is  being  substituted.  At  that  very  time  an  American 
was  overseeing  the  installation  of  some  of  the  most  up- 
to-date  glass-making  machines,  in  a  new  factory,  which, 
he  predicted,  would  swallow  up  most  of  the  trade, 
though  at  the  time  the  demand  was  but  partially 
satisfied. 

This  condition  obtained  not  only  in  glass  manufactur- 
ing. During  the  past  three  years  of  war  Japan  was  being 


HUNDREDS  OK   DEER  ROAM  ABOUT — ARCH-MENDICANTS  OF  THIS  EASY-GOING 

WORLD 


YET  SHE  D  DEFEND  THESE  LITTLE  EXPLOITERS  WITH  HER  LIFE 


THE    OLDEST    WOODEN    STRUCTURE    IN    THE    WORLD — HORH  JI    PAGODA 


JAPAN  SEEMS  ONE  LONG  VILLAGE  STREET  FROM  WHICH  THERE  IS  NO  ESCAPE 


HORROR  UNEXCELLED  223 

pressed  to  the  utmost  for  whatever  she  could  make, 
and  manufacturers  assumed  contracts  they  knew  they 
could  not  fulfil  on  time.  Osaka  manufactures  almost 
everything  that  comes  from  Japan,  and  the  consequence 
of  this  rush  was  obvious  on  the  very  streets.  The  narrow 
thoroughfares  were  crowded  with  electric  cars  and  auto- 
mobiles, the  restaurants  often  turned  people  away,  the 
river  was  thick  with  junks  and  launches,  and  Osaka 
enjoyed  such  prosperity  as  it  had  never  dreamed  of 
from  the  days  of  its  beginning — three  hundred  years 
ago.  But  it  is  not  within  the  province  of  this  chapter 
to  consider  these  conditions  in  detail. 

The  history  of  Osaka,  however,  may  be  written  briefly. 
It  has  always  been  the  commercial  center  of  Japan. 
Capitals  shifted  places  with  the  whims  of  the  various 
emperors,  but  Osaka  took  no  heed.  Impervious  to 
flood,  political  and  otherwise,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it 
is  situated  on  the  banks  of  the  torrential  Yodogawa  and 
in  the  way  of  all  currents  of  military  movements  from 
the  time  of  the  invasion  of  Japan  by  the  uncertain 
Jimmu  Tenno — the  first  Emperor — to  the  present  day, 
Osaka  has  carried  the  floods  of  success  and  the  recessions 
of  failure  with  indifference. 

No  city  in  Japan  offers  a  better  stage  for  the  display 
of  horrors  than  does  Osaka.  Its  hundreds  of  bridges, 
which  span  the  branches  of  the  Yodogawa,  may  keep  its 
inhabitants,  like  lotus  flowers,  out  of  the  slime  beneath 
them,  but  only  the  darkness  of  night  can  soften  its  ugli- 
ness. Of  all  the  tragedies  in  which  Japan  has  been 
steeped  during  the  twenty-five  hundred  years  of  its 
existence,  none  was  more  bitter  than  that  which  made  of 
Osaka  the  "black  as  November"  scene  of  Japan's  last 
great  struggle  against  disunion. 

Nobunaga  was  the  first  of  the  great  triumvirate  of 
Japan,  the  second  of  which  was  Hideyoshi,  and  the  last, 
leyasu  Tokugawa,  the  arch-exclusionist,  who  shut  the 

15 


224  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

doors  of  Japan  in  the  face  of  the  world.  In  the  matter  of 
ruthlessness,  it  is  hard  to  say  which  of  the  extremes  was 
the  worst.  Hideyoshi  was  once  or  twice  brutally  severe, 
but  he  was  in  general  one  of  the  most  lenient  of  Japanese 
generals.  Nobunaga  seems  to  have  been  the  worst. 
He  was  the  relentless  enemy  of  Buddhism  because  the 
priests  disregarded  his  power.  He  favored  Christianity 
for  commercial  reasons  and  because  it  challenged  the 
Buddhists.  He  set  for  himself  one  final  task  following 
his  well-nigh  complete  mastery  over  Japan's  feudal  lords. 
After  exterminating  the  warrior-priests  who  had  made  of 
the  peak  of  Hiei-san  an  arrow-head  of  strife  and  rapine, 
he  turned  toward  Osaka,  where  another  monastery  was 
giving  him  trouble.  And  then  one  of  the  branches  of 
the  Yodogawa  became  the  stage  for  the  enactment  of  a 
scene  of  diabolical  realism.  The  profligate  priests  had 
condoned  licentiousness  and  encouraged  concubinage. 
When  the  monastery  was  attacked,  the  many  wives  and 
concubines,  with  their  children,  tried  to  make  their 
escape.  Proof  of  their  failure  greeted  the  besieged 
warrior-priests  in  the  shape  of  a  junk  making  its  way 
along  the  river  toward  the  castle-temple,  loaded  with 
the  ears  and  noses  of  these  victims. 

One  would  like  to  call  this  the  darkest  hour  before 
dawn,  but  how  can  one  look  upon  the  seclusion  of  two 
hundred  and  seventy  years  which  followed  the  conquests 
of  these  three  great  generals  as  a  dawn,  though  it  was  a 
peace.  The  battle  of  Sekigahara  is  said  to  have  been 
the  bloodiest  in  the  history  of  Japan.  The  founder  of  the 
Tokugawa  family — leyasu — who  did  so  much  for  the  peace 
of  the  country,  violated  an  oath  he  had  made  in  friend- 
ship to  his  superior,  the  Taiko,  and  exterminated  the 
family  he  had  sworn  to  protect.  And  Osaka  was  the 
center  of  the  storm.  It  was  at  Osaka  that  the  first 
Emperor,  Jimmu,  built  his  castle  after  he  overcame  the 
swift  waves  which  gave  it  its  first  name — Naniwa.  And 


A  CASTLE,   EVIL,  AND  ART  225 

several  after  him  did  likewise.  But  it  remained  for  Hide- 
yoshi,  the  lowly  born,  to  set  there  a  fortress  impregnable 
to  all  methods  of  attack  then  known  to  the  Japanese. 
In  this  castle-fortress  his  son,  Hideyori,  and  the  latter's 
strong-minded  mother,  Yodogimi,  fortified  themselves 
when  attacked  by  leyasu.  Then  followed  carnage  and 
black  night,  and  the  eclipse  of  genius  lowly  born  by  that 
of  another  whose  antecedents  were  in  the  great  past  no 
less  lowly.  It  was  the  age  of  intrigue  no  less  than 
strategy — as  is  always  the  case  in  wars — and  leyasu  was 
no  greater  player  of  that  game  than  his  illustrious  prede- 
cessor. But  he  "put  over"  a  bit  of  deception  which 
simply  makes  one  wonder  at  the  simple-mindedness  of 
the  Japanese.  Seeing  that  the  fortress  was  impregnable, 
he  had  arranged  an  armistice  with  Hideyori,  one  of  the 
conditions  being  that  the  inner  moat  should  be  filled  in. 
A  hundred  thousand  men  were  put  to  the  task  the  instant 
arms  were  laid  at  rest,  and  continued  filling  in.  The 
besieged  weakly  protested  and  were  easily  put  off.  That 
they  should  even  for  one  moment  have  allowed  this  pro- 
cedure leaves  one  in  irritated  amazement.  The  final 
burning  of  the  castle  by  internal  treachery  seems  more 
dignified. 

The  castle  stands  to-day  as  secure  in  its  fame  for 
beauty  as  it  is  against  the  invasion  of  the  vulgar. 
Its  moat  is  broad  and  deep,  like  the  silence  hovering 
over  it.  These  conditions  are  not  without  their  sig- 
nificance. Times  change,  and  as  men  overcome  barriers 
the  forms  clung  to  out  of  mere  habit  meet  with  inevitable 
reduction. 

Osaka  is  older  than  Tokyo,  its  moat  seems  deeper  than 
that  of  the  capital,  and  the  accompanying  distance  in 
space  and  time  less  navigable.  The  silence  on  Osaka-jo 
is  deeper;  the  castle  is  sunk  in  imperial  desuetude.  The 
eruption  of  change  in  time  left  it  deep  in  the  abyss  of 
memory.  Yet  it  is  not  old  nor  even  neglected.  It  is 


226  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

fresh  and  clean,  and  as  prohibitive  as  ever.  For  there  is 
-one  thing  which  never  seems  to  die — and  that  is  human 
arrogance  and  selfishness.  That  beauty  and  loveliness 
should  surround  itself  with  so  much  hate  leaves  one  in 
doubt  as  to  whether  it  can  really  be  beautiful  and  lovely. 
Can  they  be  so  who  are  born  of  destruction?  No  man 
who  keeps  himself  at  such  an  exalted  level  as  to  exclude 
humanity  from  contact  with  his  virtues  can  really  be  a 
great  man.  So  I  am  led  to  doubt  whether  Osaka  Castle 
is  really  as  majestic  as  it  seems.  I  wonder  if  it  is  not  the 
love  of  prestige  and  power  and  pomp  hanging  about 
every  stone  and  corner  of  that  structure  which  makes 
us  think  it  beautiful.  Things  so  interwoven  with  evil, 
slaughter,  pain,  and  exclusion  cannot  be  beautiful — no 
matter  what  appearance  they  present.  They  cannot 
answer  the  human  craving  for  the  lofty  and  the  noble. 

Yet  there  stands  Osaka-jo,  a  model  of  Japanese  taste 
and  architectural  perfection;  rampart  buildings  which 
can  really  be  called  wings,  for  they  seem  to  carry  the 
whole  castle  away  upon  their  swerving  lines  and  promi- 
nences. Wings  indeed!  The  entire  arrangement  hangs 
between  impending  descent  and  promising  flight.  Noth- 
ing waits  upon  inspiration  with  so  much  grandeur  and  so 
much  reality.  Yet  it  is  a  contradiction  of  both,  even  as 
this  rhapsodical  praise  is  a  contradiction  of  the  heavier 
feelings  which  the  closed  gates,  the  armed  sentinel,  and 
the  general  exclusiveness  and  restriction,  shackled  to  the 
wonder  of  it  all,  provoked. 


XIV 

MYTHOLOGICAL    JAPAN — NARA 

STOOD  that  night  over  my  head  in  antiqui- 
ty. I  was  alone,  the  only  pale  face  in  a  world 
of  weathered  wonder-workers.  The  fathers  of 
cults  and  creeds  have  all  had  to  abstract 
themselves  from  reality  and  imagine  the 
things  they  projected.  But  I  was  suddenly  immersed  in 
mystery  and  had  to  splutter  and  grip  at  the  known  to 
keep  from  losing  myself  altogether. 

Uncertain  information  of  the  yearly  festival  at  the 
Ni-gwatsu-do  (Hall  of  the  Second  Moon)  in  Nara  set 
me  on  my  way.  It  was  so  cold  in  the  electric  car  to 
Nara  that  I  felt  like  a  corpse  in  a  communal  grave. 
Stiffness  and  sleepiness  overtook  me  before  we  came  to 
the  terminus.  Then  of  a  sudden  the  world  dropped 
away  from  before  me.  Criticisms,  objections,  antipa- 
thies, vanished.  A  cool  blue  world  of  graded  varia- 
tions closed  about ;  a  deep  blue-black  below,  a  gray-blue 
canopy  perforated  with  tiny  star-holes  through  which  to 
look  out  into  a  world  of  obliterating  sunlight. 

There  was  movement  of  air  among  the  shadows,  and  a 
sound  of  water-currents.  Presently  a  massive  gate  in 
gray,  with  horizontal  streaks  like  bars,  came  out  of  the 
darkness.  Seeing  gray  steps,  I  mounted  them,  crossed 
the  broad  threshold,  and  descended,  thus  passing 
through  from  without  to  within,  yet  being  in  the  same 
realm — on  the  outer  edge  of  the  inner  world.  Pushing 
through  this  space  and  avoiding  the  black  obstruction 


228  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

which  veiled  the  shelter  over  the  massive  bronze  image 
of  Buddha  (in  the  day-world  known  to  have  been  real 
and  material,  but  then  merely  a  curtain  of  heavy  blue, 
without  form  or  substance)  I  found  myself  in  the  outer 
reaches  of  this  unreal  world.  It  was  the  remnant  of 
reality  stored  in  an  unmaterial  world,  as  findings  dug 
from  a  submerged  past;  findings  which  they  who  would 
approximate  Nirvana  must  abandon. 

But  here  I  met  my  first  reaction  against  the  faith. 
Little  stands  and  stalls,  littered  with  tiny  images  and 
symbols  and  amulets,  seemed  to  contradict  the  spiritu- 
ality of  man.  Desire  for  profit  lurked  in  the  persuasive- 
ness of  the  vender.  We  were  supposed  to  be  nearer 
spiritual  achievement,  yet  here  were  some  deeply  in- 
terested in  matters  of  trade.  Perhaps  this  was  a  sort  of 
remnant  purgatory  through  which  one  must  pass  without 
being  lured  to  purchase  if  one  is  to  gain  Nirvana. 

A  stout  girl  with  a  voice  much  softer  than  one  would 
have  expected,  judging  from  her  appearance,  priced  the 
hangings  good-naturedly.  "Fifty  sen!"  she  exclaimed. 
"Why  this  one  has  only  half  as  many  on  it  as  the  one  I 
can  buy  in  the  city."  Yet  they  were  genial,  slight 
merriment  obtaining. 

There  are  always  contrasts.  I  wanted  the  assistance 
of  a  carrier  to  take  me  back — just  to  catch  my  breath, 
as  it  were — and  to  make  arrangements  for  the  night.  I 
wasn't  anxious  to  spend  all  of  it  in  this  overground  world. 
Two  rickshaw  pullers  were  ready  to  serve,  asking  thirty 
sen  for  the  lift.  But  which  would  take  me?  Evidently 
neither  cared  very  much  about  going  back  into  the  world 
beyond.  So  they  resorted  to  chance.  One  drew  out  a 
towel,  tied  knots  in  it;  the  other  pulled,  and  won.  With- 
out a  word  the  loser  stepped  into  the  shafts  and  whirled 
(pardon  the  exaggeration)  me  through  the  darkness  to 
the  hotel.  Arrangements  settled,  I  started  to  retrace 
my  steps.  It  was  near  midnight.  A  rickshaw  man 


THE  HEART  OF   BUDDHISM  229 

offered  to  take  me  for  twenty-two  sen — and  uphill  at 
that — and  he  said  he  would  wait  for  me  and  take  me 
back  for  the  same  amount.  He  was  pleasant,  somewhat 
intelligent,  with  a  clear  voice  and  distinct  pronunciation, 
and  seemed  pleased  that  he  was  able  to  tell  me  about  the 
coming  ceremony.  He  was  half  of  this  world  and  half 
of  the  other.  I  suppose  it  depends  on  which  way  in  a 
man's  nature  one  is  going  as  to  whether  in  the  end  you 
will  think  him  altogether  good  or  altogether  bad. 

Passing  a  second  time  through  this  pecuniary  purga- 
tory, and  taking  the  steps  two  at  a  time,  I  reached  the 
base  of  the  temple.  It  was  the  next  thing  to  reality, 
and  while  the  masses  waited  for  the  hour  of  prayer,  they 
indulged  in  conversation  which  might  be  said  to  be  in 
the  nature  of  worldly  reminiscence.  One  so  unfamiliar 
with  the  language  as  to  be  unable  to  catch  thoughts 
from  among  the  murmur  of  voices  is  left  entirely  out- 
side of  things.  But  a  word  here  and  a  word  there  is 
like  a  star-hole  through  which  to  peep  into  the  outer 
world  of  light,  or  a  pin-prick  in  a  piece  of  paper  through 
which  to  watch  the  sun. 

I  felt  I  had  come  to  the  very  heart  of  Buddhism. 
You  cannot  do  so  during  the  day,  for  its  human  defects 
are  then  too  obvious.  Even  at  midnight  it  is  difficult 
to  release  yourself  from  recollections  of  known  dis- 
crepancies. I  tried  to  forget,  to  see  it  as  it  seems,  and 
from  the  point  of  view  of  those  who  worship.  They 
sit  for  hours  upon  the  mats  in  the  alcove-wings  around 
the  heart  of  the  temple,  body  touching  body.  Some 
pray,  others  gossip,  and  not  a  few  sleep.  Others  trot 
around  the  temple  on  the  veranda.  Is  it  penance  for 
sins  committed,  or  is  the  body  unsouled  trying  to  regain 
a  little  warmth  by  action  ? 

The  temple  is  a  roof  without  walls,  and  the  wind 
moves  about  with  searching  curiosity.  It  stands  high 
upon  the  hillside,  supported  by  heavy  wooden  pillars. 


23o  JAPAN— REAL  AND   IMAGINARY 

A  door  opens  on  each  side  of  each  wing  into  a  small 
chamber  not  connected  with  the  others  except  as  all 
face  the  central  chamber  wherein  is  the  brazen  altar 
set  with  rice-cakes  and  candles.  Here  move  and  pray 
the  priests.  It  resembles  a  prison  or  cage  of  heavy 
wooden  lattice-work.  By  day  it  is  neither  beautiful 
nor  interesting,  lacking  paint  and  polish.  At  night 
the  inner,  inaccessible,  unresponsive  trinity  of  rice- 
cake,  candle,  and  the  human  face  become  sources  of 
light,  color,  and  motion,  flicker,  glitter,  and  emotion. 
This  is  not  Buddhist  scripture,  perhaps,  but  it  is  what  it 
was  to  me,  except  when  I  remembered  it  as  it  was  during 
the  day.  Being  an  impressionable  person,  I  like  things 
for  what  they  seem  fully  as  much  as  for  what  they  are — 
but  because  they  seem  to  be  that,  and  not  because  I 
accept  them  as  reality.  Now  that  I  have  returned  to 
the  world  of  matter  again  and  attempt  to  recount  my 
experiences,  I  keep  asking  myself:  "But  why  did  they 
carry  out  this  performance  at  night?  Is  there  anything 
wrong  with  the  day?" 

Just  within  the  priests'  entrance,  one  sat  holding  a 
bundle  of  burning  bamboo  sticks,  the  ashes  and  cinders 
of  which  dropped  into  a  flat  earthen  tray.  Across  the 
valley  glowed  soft  city  electric  lights.  What's  wrong 
with  electricity?  Why  the  primitive  torches?  The  re- 
ligions of  the  future  will  probably  keep  a  stream  of  elec- 
trons issuing  from  a  coil  against  a  copper  plate  ?  That  is 
the  way  of  human  progress.  So  why  worship  with  the 
torches  of  sticks? 

At  fifteen  minutes  before  midnight  the  priests  began 
to  strike  their  bells.  Chatter  and  movement  continued, 
while  within  was  the  chanting  of  prayer.  For  two  hours 
those  who  had  held  to  places  on  the  mats  continued  their 
prayer;  the  others  lined  the  steps  and  paths  in  antici- 
pation of  the  ceremony  of  breaking  the  seal  of  the  sacred 
well — Kawash-no-i.  Midnight  and  cold  had  no  terrors 


A  MIRACLE   IN  THE   DARK  231 

for  these  old  men  and  young  girls.  It  was  a  still  night, 
but  a  stillness  owing  to  a  heavy  cold  which  had  become 
immovable.  I  thought  I  would  lose  what  little  of  the 
physical  senses  remained  to  me,  my  lower  limbs  feeling 
the  weight  of  my  body  and  the  weight  of  the  air. 

The  approach  to  the  sacred  spring  is  down  a  short 
incline,  at  right  angles  to  which  is  the  walk  and  the 
steep  set  of  stairs  leading  to  the  temple  above.  The 
well  is  said  to  be  dry  up  to  the  moment  the  priests  enter 
and  after  they  depart  with  the  last  bucket  of  water. 
So  I  was  about  to  witness  the  performance  of  a  miracle. 
But  evidently  the  people  were  used  to  it,  for  they  showed 
none  of  the  signs  of  religious  emotion  one  expects  from 
such  crowds.  From  the  point  of  view  of  a  westerner 
with  no  religious  bias,  I  must  confess  that  this  seemed 
somewhat  bizarre.  Men  and  boys  clambered  up  stone 
lanterns  and  trees,  in  total  absence  of  decorum.  This 
is  in  a  way  a  sign  of  health  in  Oriental  religions.  With 
other  religions  there  is  too  much  striving,  too  much  dis- 
content, too  much  complaint  of  the  lot  of  human  exist- 
ence and  exaltation  of  a  future  existence.  But  these 
people  are  either  in  utter  despair  or  indifference,  or  so 
certain  of  their  future  as  to  feel  no  need  for  further 
effort.  The  contentions  of  western  critics  notwith- 
standing, there  was  an  absence  of  strain  and  emotional 
display  which  was  as  delightful  as  it  was  strange. 

The  hour  had  come.  A  bundle  of  sticks  on  the  shoul- 
ders of  one  man  behind  another  carrying  a  blazing 
torch  of  bamboo  sticks  in  his  hands.  Perhaps  I  might 
symbolize  even  where  no  symbol  was  intended,  and 
convince  the  reader  that  this  meant  to  show  that  mat- 
ter pursues  spiritualization.  But  as  fire  is  the  active 
agent  and  pursues  wood — the  victim — so  light  and 
thought  and  emotion  assail  the  body. 

Then  two  enormous  red  parasols  appeared  at  the  head 
of  the  steps,  borne  by  two  subordinate  priests.  Two 


232  JAPAN— REAL  AND   IMAGINARY 

torch-bearers  followed  with  two  long  sheaves  of  sticks 
touching  their  flaming  ends  as  they  descended.  Three 
water-carriers  came  after  them,  each  with  a  yoke  across 
his  shoulder,  on  the  ends  of  which,  canopied  in  leaves, 
hung  the  basket  on  which  stood  the  empty  buckets. 
At  the  angle,  the  smaller  torches  were  deposited  on  the 
ground  and  extinguished.  The  water-carriers  passed 
down  the  incline  to  the  door  of  the  hut.  All  was  sub- 
merged in  darkness.  A  latch  was  heard  to  be  unlocked 
and  the  door  put  aside.  Still  in  darkness,  the  priests 
entered,  remained  a  few  minutes,  and  emerged — with 
buckets  full  of  water. 

A  miracle.  Where  shortly  before  there  was  no  water 
at  all  water  had  been  dipped.  At  the  angle,  small 
torches  were  again  ignited  and  given  the  priests  and  they 
lighted  the  way  of  the  chief  priest  and  carriers,  the  pro- 
cession taking  its  initial  form  and  ascending  the  steps  to 
the  temple.  There  the  water  was  consecrated.  Three 
times  they  came,  taking  forty  minutes  in  all,  and  the 
ceremony  was  at  an  end.  An  end  which  had  a  beginning 
somewhere  in  the  eighth  century,  with  En-no-Gyoja, 
the  anchorite  priest,  as  the  founder.  "He  lived  in  a 
cave  on  Katsurgi  Mount  for  forty  years,  wore  garments 
made  of  wistaria  bark,  and  ate  only  pine-leaves  steeped 
in  spring  water.  During  the  night  he  compelled  demons 
to  draw  water  and  gather  firewood,  and  during  the  day 
he  rode  upon  clouds  of  five  colors."1  "Legend  says 
that  when  the  founder  dedicated  the  temple,  the  god  of 
Onyu  in  the  province  of  Wakasa  begged  leave  to  provide 
the  holy  water,  whereupon  a  white  and  black  cormorant 
flew  out  of  the  rock  and  disappeared,  while  water  gushed 
forth  from  the  hole.  From  that  time  the  stream,  which 
had  flowed  past  the  shrine  of  Onyu,  dried  up,  its  waters 
having  been  transferred  to  the  Ni-gwatsu-do.  Local 


1  Brinkley,  History  of  Japan. 


A  DANGEROUS  TEMPTATION  233 

lore  tells  of  unbelievers  having  become  convinced  of  the 
truth  of  the  miracle  by  throwing  rice-husks  into  the 
original  spring  in  Wakasa,  which  reappeared  after  a  due 
interval  in  the  spring  here  at  Nara."  1 

Thousands  of  people  stood  round  about  watching. 
They  were  mainly  from  Osaka  and  Kyoto,  I  was  told. 
I  have  yet  to  meet  a  Japanese,  however,  who  has  visited 
Nara  for  the  purpose  from  any  great  distance. 

There  were  torches  enough  in  use,  but  none,  to  my 
way  of  thinking,  well  directed.  All  threw  light  on  the 
form  and  concealed  the  source.  I  nearly  yielded  to  the 
temptation  of  throwing  my  flashlight  upon  the  well,  to 
see  what  was  going  on.  True,  from  a  rational  point  of 
view,  hardly  necessary,  but  to  the  faithful  it  might  have 
been  a  new  revelation.  Iconoclastic  boldness,  however, 
so  often  meets  with  disaster,  not  only  not  accomplishing 
its  aim,  but  sometimes  even  helping  to  exalt  the  super- 
stition it  tries  to  destroy,  that  I  had  little  difficulty  in 
restraining  myself. 

Thus  I  stood  that  night  over  my  head  in  antiquity. 
Not  that  the  West  is  so  young  as  to  preclude  such  oppor- 
tunities, but  that  human  nature  has  a  way  of  accepting 
things  with  which  it  is  in  constant  association  without 
question  or  detachment.  "You  can  see  much  more 
impressive  ceremonies  at  All  Saints'  Church  every 
Sunday,  yet  you  don't  go,"  objected  a  gentleman. 
Association  is  the  secret  of  the  tenacity  with  which  cus- 
toms and  rites  are  clung  to.  They  become  so  much  a 
part  of  one's  experience  that  one  fails  to  see  that  their 
primitiveness  is  inconsistent  with  enlightened  thought. 
The  mass  of  the  religious,  who  accept  with  firmness  the 
faith  which  is  their  heritage,  would  riddle  with  scorn  the 
same  tenets  were  they  suddenly  imposed  upon  them. 
But  having  associated  their  own  actions  with  these  con- 


1  Chamberlain,  Handbook  for  Japan. 


234  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

ceptions,  they  begin  to  feel  that  on  that  very  account 
they  are  inspired.  In  other  words,  the  grafted  twig  is 
accepted  by  the  tree,  the  scar  is  concealed,  and  the  fruit 
feels  itself  to  be  a  genuine  product  and  forgets  the 
process. 

It  was  at  Nara  that  Japan  first  became  an  empire; 
at  Nara  that  Buddhism  first  took  root;  at  Nara  that 
Japanese  art  first  found  expression.  Nara,  apart  from 
its  mythological,  historical,  and  religious  associations, 
is  one  of  the  prettiest  spots  in  Japan.  But  from  the 
point  of  view  of  a  city,  when  this  is  said  there 
is  little  else  to  say.  One  must  instantly  fall  back 
again  to  its  romantic  side.  At  ordinary  times  it  is 
quiet  and  its  verdure  is  a  relief  from  rice-fields  and  con- 
fusion. But  various  and  conflicting  are  the  experiences 
when  the  tide  of  Japanese  life  again  turns  in  the  direc- 
tion of  this — the  birthplace  of  Japan.  Emerging  from 
a  night  in  antiquity  leaves  one  ready  for  a  day  in  the 
present,  but  on  holidays  the  present  itself  becomes 
steeped  in  antiquity.  Besides  numerous  trips  to  Nara 
during  week-ends,  I  spent  five  weeks  at  a  stretch  browsing 
about  among  the  temples  and  the  tumuli.  Surely  the 
Aino,  that  ill-fated  race  whom  the  Yamato,  the  well- 
fated  race,  drove  northward,  loved  as  dearly,  if  not  as 
fiercely,  this  picturesque  land. 

Twenty-five  hundred  years  ago  Jimmu  Tenno,  the 
first  "divine"  Emperor,  stepped  out  of  his  celestial 
realms  to  conquer  and  to  govern  these  islands.  And 
to-day  we  are  rushed  with  electric  rapidity  over  regions 
fairly  littered  with  the  tombs  of  emperors  whose  identity 
cannot  be  definitely  traced.  Yet  though  inclined  to 
discard  these  divine  and  imperial  trappings  with  in- 
difference, it  is  strange  that  my  residence  at  Nara 
afforded  me  associations  with  princes  and  nobility  which, 
so  far,  no  other  place  in  the  world  has  done. 

I  had  not  been  in  Nara  an  hour  before  I  discovered 


A  THUG  AND  AN  M.  P.  235 

that  Mr.  Yukio  Ozaki,  the  well-known  liberal  member  of 
the  Diet,  was  in  the  province  electioneering.  I  asked 
the  hotel  clerk  to  let  me  know  when  the  distinguished 
guest  would  come  in.  But  Japanese  are  most  timorous 
in  the  presence  of  great  folk,  and  this  one,  instead  of 
carrying  out  my  request,  notified  Mr.  Ozaki.  It  was 
not  hard  for  me  to  meet  him,  however,  and  after  a  short 
conversation  he  invited  me  to  attend  one  of  his  meetings. 
And  that  brought  me  right  into  the  midst  of  Japanese 
imperialism,  for  that  day  he  was  to  speak  at  a  little 
theater  in  Unebi,  within  three-quarters  of  a  mile  of  the 
tomb  of  Jimmu  Tenno.  I  arrived  alone,  but,  being  a 
foreigner,  was  graciously  led  to  the  stage  where,  with 
several  other  M.  P.'s  who  were  to  speak,  I  waited  the 
arrival  of  Mr.  Ozaki.  He  came  somewhat  late  in  the 
afternoon.  The  little  theater  was  fairly  dark.  The 
electric  lights  had  not  yet  come  on.  Mr.  Ozaki  chatted 
with  me  while  the  other  speaker  was  closing,  and  then 
stepped  out  upon  the  stage.  I  stood  near  the  door, 
watching.  The  instant  he  appeared,  cheers  rose  such  as 
are  seldom  heard  in  far  Japan.  In  ancient  times,  before 
such  an  exalted  person  they  would  have  fallen  to  their 
knees.  He  who  had  dared  to  raise  his  eyes  to  an  im- 
perial person  forfeited  them.  But  things  are  changing 
in  Japan,  try  as  imperialism  will  to  restrain  them.  It 
did  try  that  very  moment.  Hardly  had  the  applause  sub- 
sided when  out  of  the  darkened  auditorium  a  figure  in 
white  leaped  upon  the  stage  in  a  murderous  attack  on 
the  Minister.  I  had  hardly  time  to  see  what  was  toward. 
The  table  was  turned,  and  there  upon  the  floor  lay  two 
men — the  man  in  white  underneath,  pinned  to  the  floor 
in  a  judo  grip.  But  Mr.  Ozaki  stood  aside,  as  straight 
and  still  and  calm  as  a  statue.  An  angry  roar  rose  from 
the  audience  and  it  seemed  to  me  the  whole  mass  was 
rising  toward  us  like  a  tide.  Then,  seeing  their  hero 
unperturbed,  the  people  changed  the  roar  into  a  cheer 


236  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

and  Mr.  Ozaki  slowly  commenced  his  speech.  Though 
this  is  no  unusual  occurrence  in  Japan,  I  am  told  that  no 
other  foreigner  has  ever  been  present  at  such  an  attack. 

It  is  common  for  self -elected  patriots  who  call  them- 
selves soshi  to  intimidate  any  one  with  any  liberal  or 
unpopular  tendency.  Mr.  Ozaki  afterward  told  me 
that  he  is  frequently  attacked,  but  never  makes  any 
attempt  to  defend  himself,  his  own  rigidity  generally 
being  his  defense.  He  also  said  that  he  was  speaking 
there  for  greater  extension  of  democratic  government. 
There,  he  said,  in  the  presence  of  the  tomb  of  the  first 
Emperor,  he  pleaded  for  the  people,  because  the  Tenno 
himself  had  said  that  without  the  people  he  could 
not  rule. 

Yet  the  sacredness  of  the  Emperor  none  dares  ques- 
tion. The  tomb  is  close  against  a  wooded  hill,  with  a 
stone  fence  round  it.  One  may  only  approach  the  outer 
gate  and  look  off  into  the  dell — and  see  nothing.  Cam- 
eras are  prohibited,  as  are  sticks  and  umbrellas.  It 
seems  even  love  is  shut  out,  though  the  green,  the  quiet, 
and  the  loveliness  of  nature  induce  it. 

Though  royalty  is  not  in  my  gallery  of  heroes,  it 
was  at  Nara  that  I  had  my  first  acquaintance  with  it. 
On  a  day  we  learned  that  a  prince  was  in  our  midst. 
We  did  not  see  him,  we  could  not  hear  him,  but  the  air 
was  electric  with  his  presence.  Then,  after  sleeping 
beneath  his  exalted  suite,  I  was  informed  that  he  was 
dining  some  of  his  officers  in  the  small  dining-room  of  the 
hotel.  Looking  through  the  veranda  windows,  I  saw 
what  seemed  to  me  a  wake.  Prince  Nashimoto  sat  at 
the  side  of  the  long  table,  with  a  vacant  chair  to  either 
side  of  him,  two  officers  at  the  head  and  the  foot,  and 
four  opposite  him.  They  did  not  look  at  one  another, 
but  bowed  their  heads  to  their  plates.  Their  lips  did  not 
move,  so  far  as  I  could  see.  This  not  being  exciting,  I 
went  into  the  main  dining-room  for  my  own  dinner  and 


PRINCES— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY          237 

emerged  again  just  as  the  Prince  was  being  handed  his 
sword  by  an  officer.  It  was  all  done  perfunctorily.  I 
could  not  stand  and  look  on,  so  brushed  past  him — and 
thereby  must  have  done  him  an  indignity,  though  unin- 
tentionally. But  I  thought  that,  it  being  a  public  hotel, 
even  princes  had  to  take  their  chances. 

A  week  later  I  had  occasion  to  see  another  prince 
there.  But  what  a  contrast!  We  were  advised  that 
Prince  Arthur  of  Connaught  was  to  visit  Nara.  For 
days  the  hotel  was  upside  down,  being  thoroughly  reno- 
vated. Then  we  heard  all  sorts  of  rumors  about  restric- 
tions on  our  movements.  We  were  not  to  use  the  main 
stairway.  It  was  to  be  reserved  for  the  royal  party. 
We  were  not  to  have  our  usual  places  in  the  dining- 
room.  In  fact,  all  we  were  allowed  to  do  was  to  pay  our 
bills  in  the  usual  way.  And  outside  soldiers  were 
stationed. 

The  day  arrived.  Everybody  was  full  of  expectation. 
Then  across  the  pond  divided  by  the  main  road  we  saw 
a  string  of  rickshaws — it  was  the  royal  party.  We  were 
in  the  lobby  when  Prince  Arthur  stepped  out  of  his 
rickshaw  and  entered.  The  rest  of  the  party  kept  about 
ten  feet  behind  him.  He  ascended  the  stairs  with  a 
suppressed  beam  upon  his  face.  He  was  obviously 
amused.  His  intention  had  been  to  travel  incognito  and 
as  a  private  citizen,  but  Nipponism  would  not  have  it. 
That  evening  he  came  to  table  in  his  street  clothes,  sat 
with  his  elbows  on  the  table,  gazed  about  the  room  ab- 
sent-mindedly, and  tried  to  be  as  informal  as  he  could, 
regardless  of  the  fact  that  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  half 
a  dozen  Japanese  barons  and  marquises  were  trying  to 
honor  him. 

From  Kobe  had  come  four  young  men  who  tried  their 
best  to  dishonor  him.  Two  were  Australian  and  one 
American,  and  all  seemed  imbued  with  the  notion  that 
the  only  way  they  could  be  democrats  was  by  treating 


238  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

a  prince  contemptuously.  They  sent  notes  to  "Artie" 
and  made  themselves  so  "congenial"  that  the  earl, 
suspecting  their  motives,  accepted  their  invitation  to  a 
drink.  They  were  later  invited  to  the  police  station 
and  told  to  move  to  a  tea-house  as  quietly  as  possible. 
Some  other  things  went  wrong.  The  night  was  misty 
and  the  fireworks  made  a  noise,  but  no  sparks. 

Next  morning  I  was  in  the  lobby,  ready  to  depart  for 
Kobe  for  the  week-end.  The  royal  party  was  about,  ex- 
cept Prince  Arthur.  As  he  appeared  at  the  head  of  the 
stairs  they  all  rose,  and  when  he  was  on  the  third  from  the 
last  step  they  bowed.  ' '  Good  morning,  gentlemen, "  said 
the  Prince,  and  they  answered,  "Good  morning."  He 
passed  on  out  to  the  rickshaw,  they  followed  a  dozen 
feet  behind  him,  the  coolies  were  on  their  knees,  heads 
bowed  forward,  and  the  train  moved  down  the  road. 
I  took  a  short  cut  and  came  out  upon  the  main  street 
to  find  a  small  crowd  of  Japanese  at  the  corner.  I 
pushed  through  and  made  my  way  along  toward  the 
station.  Just  then  a  Japanese  in  a  rickshaw  came  past, 
about  fifty  feet  ahead  of  the  princely  train.  He  scowled 
at  me  for  my  daring.  I  went  on.  A  policeman,  as  stiff 
as  a  telegraph-pole,  commanded  me  with  the  one  word 
he  knew  to  "Stop!"  I  worked  my  way  by  and  obeyed. 
But  there  I  was,  the  only  foreigner  on  the  street.  As 
Prince  Arthur  passed  the  crowd  he  raised  his  hat  to 
them  and  smiled,  but  never  a  sound  nor  a  sign  of  enthu- 
siasm did  they  show.  It  was  so  amusing  that  when 
he  passed  me,  not  knowing  how  I  should  act  before 
a  prince,  I  raised  my  hat  to  him.  He  smiled  know- 
ingly, and  bowed  and  raised  his  hat  in  turn.  He 
wanted  to  be  treated  like  a  man,  it  seemed,  and  was 
amused  at  the  contrasts  in  the  ways  of  the  world.  And 
I  learned  then,  thinking  of  Prince  Nashimoto,  that 
after  all  a  man  is  indeed  a  man  for  all  that. 

Ill-content  with  the  perpetual  worship  of  living  idols, 


A 


SAID  TO  HAVF.  NOHLK  HI.OOD  IN  HIM,  BUT  JTST  AS  LIKI-XY  AINO 


<*  a 

t.  a 

o 


THE  DAIBUTSU  239 

man  seeks  to  materialize  his  ideals.  The  sad  part  of  it 
is  that  in  neither  case  is  sufficient  thought  given  to  the 
question  as  to  whether  they  are  worth  while.  Idols 
are  made  and  broken  with  tiresome  regularity.  Take 
the  matter  of  Buddhism,  which  found  its  first  friends  at 
Nara.  A  plague  came,  and  these  friends  suffered  be- 
cause it  was  said  that  the  strange  idols  brought  it. 
The  idols  broken,  the  plague  naturally  continued,  even 
became  worse,  and  the  idols  were  brought  back  again. 
After  twelve  hundred  years  of  peace  the  enormous 
bronze  image  of  Buddha  known  as  the  Daibutsu  still 
stands  within  a  tremendous  wooden  structure.  It  is  the 
largest  image  in  all  Japan.  Its  measurements  are  the 
wonder  of  the  world — even  to  one  who  has  been  inside 
the  Statue  of  Liberty.  It  is  neither  male  nor  female, 
human  nor  divine.  It  lacks  the  fire  of  pagan  impulse 
and  the  calm  of  Oriental  indifference.  The  face  is  not 
ideal  and  conceals  a  strain  of  the  voluptuary.  The 
upraised  hand,  as  though  bidding  silence,  almost  turns 
one  away  instead  of  holding  one's  attention.  But  it  is 
silent  and  unfriendly,  as  different  from  the  big  Buddha 
at  Kamakura  as  one  man  is  from  another. 

Not  so  the  great  bell  at  the  temple  above.  Nothing 
of  all  the  vast  collection  of  antiquities  in  Japan  is  so  rich 
in  living  quality  as  the  bell  at  Nara.  For  twelve  hun- 
dred years  its  reassuring  boom  has  rung  out  across 
the  hills.  Wonderful  is  the  sound  of  the  temple  bell; 
its  firmness  is  a  consolation  to  the  weary.  It  does  not 
call  nor  warn.  It  urges  you  neither  to  come  to  the 
temple  nor  to  fear  for  your  soul.  It  really  tells  you, 
like  a  loving  parent,  that  all  is  well  with  the  world.  It 
responds  to  come  who  will,  and  booms  out  as  earnestly 
for  the  child  as  for  the  grown-up,  for  the  woman  as  for 
the  man.  And  thus,  all  day  long,  the  straggling  visitors 
keep  the  thought  of  Buddha  in  the  minds  of  a  busy 

world.     And  when  man  goes  off  holidaying  they  make 
16 


24o  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

the  bell  work  the  hardest.     Any  one  who  cares  can 
strike  it  for  a  contribution  of  two  sen  to  the  temple. 

All  the  residents  of  Yamato  district  contributed  to  the 
flood  which  poured  into  Nara  that  holy  day.  Thou- 
sands of  families  packed  the  trains  and  electric  cars,  and 
the  confusion  dinned  the  world  and  stirred  the  dust  of 
the  roads. 

As  much  as  Japan's  picturesqueness  appeals  to  the 
foreigner,  he  misses  the  green  grass  under  his  feet. 
Nara  is  the  one  place  where  he  regains  some  of  this 
earthly  happiness.  The  park  is  lawned  and  the  verdure 
most  refreshing.  Hundreds  of  deer  roam  about 
— arch-mendicants  of  this  (spiritually  speaking)  easy- 
going world.  Jumbo  is  not  always  known  to  have  bad 
manners,  yet  we  have  to  feed  him  through  iron  bars. 
Only  a  Thoreau  and  a  Burroughs  have  enjoyed  the 
friendship  of  wild  animals  without  limiting  their  freedom. 
The  lover  of  wild  life  receives  a  thrill  of  delight  the  first 
time  a  gentle,  fleet-footed  deer  stands  before  him, 
bowing  his  head  in  Japanese  humility,  begging  for  little 
brown  biscuits.  Why,  one  is  ready  to  go  away  with  the 
feeling  that  nowhere  in  the  world  are  animals  more  for- 
tunate than  in  Japan.  Where  else  would  such  alert 
timidity  put  its  heart  at  rest?  But  the  resident  soon 
learns  with  regret  that  such  is  not  the  true  state  of 
affairs.  His  regret  turns  to  fury  and  anger  when  he  sees 
the  cruelty  animals  are  subjected  to  because  of  the  per- 
version of  principle.  Buddhism  had  enjoined  that  no 
life  be  taken,  so  selfishness  finds  a  way  out  of  it  by  neg- 
lect, as  pointed  out  in  my  chapter  on  recreation. 

There  was  a  shogun  about  two  hundred  years  ago, 
Tsunayoshi  by  name,  who  lost  his  son.  He  was  stricken 
sore  with  grief.  A  priest  told  him  that  in  a  former  in- 
carnation he  had  been  cruel  to  animals,  especially  dogs, 
and  that  he  could  assure  himself  of  another  son  if  he 
not  only  refrained  from  taking  life,  but  gave  special 


THE   DOG  MANIA  241 

protection  to  dogs.  Forthwith  went  out  an  edict  for- 
bidding harm  to  any  dog,  and  the  consequence  was 
that  dogs  multiplied  by  the  thousands.  In  Tokyo  a 
giant  kennel  was  raised,  and  everywhere  dogs  were 
treated  better  than  human  beings.  In  fact,  for  the  life 
of  a  dog,  the  taking  of  which  Buddhism  proscribed,  the 
shogun  ordered  the  taking  of  many  a  human  life.  That 
a  man  should  become  so  warped  in  his  thinking  seems 
incredible.  It  ended  in  the  destruction  of  crops  and 
intense  suffering,  but  no  son  came  to  the  fanatic.  And 
though  the  edict  was  removed,  Buddhism  even  to-day 
results  in  animal  suffering,  because  Japanese  will  not 
take  life. 

Idols,  heroes,  symbols,  love  of  Emperor,  patriotism, 
religion — intrinsically  good  are  soon  made  unrecog- 
nizable because  the  form  is  made  more  fuss  over  than 
the  quality. 

Nara  is  the  national  ideal  of  Japan.  It  was  here  that 
Buddhism  found  its  first  stanch  supporter  in  a  de- 
scendant of  the  gods — Prince  Shotoku — and  but  a  few 
miles  away  stands  one  of  the  oldest  wooden  struct- 
ures in  the  world  —  Horiuji  Temple.  Were  one  not 
watchful  of  some  light  which  these  innumerable  efforts 
in  as  many  different  stages  of  preservation  throw  upon 
the  history  of  human  ideals  one  would  indeed  weary  of 
this  monotony. 

Thus  at  Nara,  as  everywhere  else  in  Japan,  in  the  very 
midst  of  tombs,  Buddhas,  and  natural  beauty,  mankind 
is  just  what  it  is  anywhere  else  in  the  world.  It  seeks  a 
good  time,  paying  little  or  no  attention  to  both  Buddha 
and  the  bell. 

Here  is  a  picture  of  Nara  of  to-day.  Open  tea-houses 
(or  sheds)  with  red  blankets  upon  the  mats  are  full  of 
merrymakers.  Geisha  dancing,  men  drinking,  and  all 
singing,  their  good  spirits  pouring  out  into  the  void. 
The  Japanese,  as  soon  as  he  is  drunk,  loses  all  control 


242  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAC7INARY 

over  his  generosity.  The  foreigner  who  happens  across 
his  path  instantly  comes  in  for  attention  which  he  hardly 
knows  how  to  take.  They  fairly  dragged  me  into  their 
midst,  one  man  holding  me  and  another  trying  to  remove 
my  shoes  so  that  I  might  sit  on  the  mats.  I  had  to 
remonstrate  with  them.  Everything  there  was  placed 
at  my  disposal,  and  cordiality  flowed  as  freely  as  the 
beer  and  sake.  The  shouting  and  singing  from  tea- 
house to  tea-house  is  an  interesting  commentary  on  the 
tea  ceremony  of  which  one  reads  so  much.  Had  the 
zealous  priest  known  that  by  cutting  off  his  eyelids 
because  they  betrayed  him  into  dozing  while  he  should 
have  been  at  prayer,  he  would  give  to  the  world  so  little 
of  what  he  prayed  for,  he  would  surely  have  saved  him- 
self his  pains.  Instead  of  the  quiet  and  the  cloistered 
abstraction,  tea-houses  are  the  noisiest  places  on  the 
face  of  the  earth. 

Pleasure  does  not  confine  itself  to  the  sheds.  Two 
little  girls,  dressed  like  geisha,  with  their  little  brother 
in  the  costume  of  the  samurai,  acted  a  thrilling  scene 
on  the  grass  near  the  road.  Their  mother  accompanied 
them  on  the  samisen.  Minstrelsy  is  still  a  pretty  feature 
of  Japanese  life. 

Nara  is  a  backward  city,  commercially  speaking. 
Everybody  claims  to  go  to  Nara  to  enjoy  the  past,  but 
the  people  of  the  city  are  now  hankering  after  the 
glitter  of  the  present.  And  as  a  token  of  gratitude  for 
a  favor  I  had  rendered,  an  official  sent  me,  at  Christmas, 
not  a  relic  of  old  Japan,  but  a  dozen  fine  Irish-linen 
handkerchiefs. 


XV 

A    MONK     FOR    A    NIGHT 

MIGHT  now  be  wandering  about  with  a 
smooth-shaven  head,  in  a  flowing  crape  gown 
of  bronze  silk  with  exquisitely  embroidered 
lapels,  were  it  not  for  that  young  American. 
His  theosophical  mother  placed  him  in  a 
Buddhist  monastery  in  Japan  as  a  novice  for  the  priest- 
hood. He  remained  there  two  years  and  quit.  Now 
it  is  impossible  for  any  one  else  to  get  in  except  as  a  tem- 
porary guest.  Despite  this  curtailment  of  monastic 
privileges,  I  determined  to  know  what  it  is  to  be  a  monk 
in  Japan,  and  set  out  for  Koya-san,  an  hour's  ride  by  train 
from  Nara,  one  of  the  oldest  monasteries  in  the  Tenno's 
empire.  Like  most  of  the  Japanese  monasteries  Koya-san 
is  beautifully  secluded  from  the  sordid  world  by  wood- 
land and  hilltop.  Though  it  is  reached  from  all  the 
centers  by  either  train  or  electric  car,  these  come  only  to 
Koya-guchi  and  Hashimoto  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain. 
Thence  there  is  a  ten-mile  walk  along  a  winding  road 
which  rises  for  over  a  thousand  feet.  And  for  more 
than  a  thousand  years  the  road  has  been  kept  open  by 
the  passage  of  pilgrims,  day  in  and  day  out,  and  the 
bodies  and  bones  and  monuments  of  the  dead  followed 
in  their  footsteps. 

Forestalled  once  before  by  deluge  and  typhoon  from 
making  the  ascent  in  summer,  I  now  braved  the  sleet 
and  snow  of  winter  unyieldingly.  The  way  was  astir 


244  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

with  pilgrims.  Pack-horses  wobbled  up  and  down  the 
grade,  led  by  listless  laborers  in  stiff  leather  moccasins. 
Their  limbs  were  stripped  bare  as  though  summer,  not 
winter,  were  the  order  of  the  day.  I  rather  envied  their 
naked  freedom. 

At  the  first  red  "sacred"  bridge  the  steepest  portion 
of  the  ascent  is  over.  Beyond  the  second  we  stand 
before  the  gate.  Here  sits  the  bronze  Jizo,  god  of 
travelers,  protector  of  pregnant  women  and  of  children, 
exposed  in  semi-exile.  Now,  that  is  just  like  most  gods. 
If  Jizo  is  such  a  remarkable  patron  of  weary  wanderers, 
why  wasn't  he  down  there  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain, 
ready  to  assist  me  to  the  top  ?  After  you  have  done  all 
the  work  and  struggled  over  the  arduous  journey,  there 
he  sits,  complacent  and  pleasant. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  despite  his  function  as  protector 
of  feminine  weakness,  Jizo  has  been  as  indifferent  to 
women  as  to  wanderers.  Until  recently  no  mother  of 
man  might  pass  through  the  gate  that  he  guards.  Yet 
he  was  set  to  watch  there  by  a  devout  woman.  How 
like  a  mother  to  present  so  benevolent  a  god  to  man 
and  child  \vhile  being  herself  excluded  by  man  from 
reaching  the  final  goal ! 

I  soon  found  some  one  more  attentive  than  Jizo.  A 
pleasant  clerk  looked  me  up  and  down,  reflecting  upon 
his  observations  before  assigning  me  to  a  temple  hostelry. 
Never  was  I  judged  more  accurately,  and  never  was  my 
purse  tapped  so  judiciously  as  that,  my  first  and  only 
night  in  a  monastery.  The  little  boy  of  six  assigned  to 
guide  me  trudged  ahead  on  his  four-inch  wooden  clogs. 
The  road  lazed  its  way  along  the  level  of  the  ravine, 
lined  on  the  right  by  trinket-stores. 

Snow  lay  six  inches  deep,  adding  delitescence  to  the 
monastery,  shut  in  by  forest  and  mountain.  The 
numerous  temples  to  the  left  crouched  behind  their 
walls,  only  the  roofs  protruding.  The  vastness  of  their 


CANDLES   FOR   BUDDHA  245 

architectural  enterprise  was  rivaled  only  by  the  tumuli 
of  the  dead,  which  stretch  for  more  than  a  mile  through 
the  grove  of  cryptomerias  beyond. 

I  entered  the  gate  of  the  monastery  which  stood  at  the 
edge  of  the  graveyard.  The  acolytes  on  the  veranda 
scurried  in  for  one  of  the  priests,  in  a  way  which  made 
me  feel  myself  a  guest  with  no  ordinary  possibilities. 
They  assigned  me  to  a  room  neat  and  clean,  with  only 
wooden  bars  four  inches  square  to  remind  me  of  the 
nature  of  the  place.  Otherwise  the  straw  mats,  the 
screens  and  tokonoma  (alcove  for  pictures  and  flower 
arrangement) ,  were  of  better  material  than  may  be  found 
at  most  inns.  Only  in  one  detail  was  the  room  different 
from  any  other  Japanese  room:  there  was  a  concrete 
fire-box  two  feet  square  set  into  the  mats,  besides  the 
usual  braziers,  which  showed  that  on  Koya-san  winter 
is  winter.  Sitting  on  the  mats  before  it,  it  was  easy  to 
keep  one's  feet  warm  over  the  charcoal.  Without,  the 
rippling  water  of  the  serpent  fountain  and  the  remem- 
brance of  snow;  within,  the  paper  sliding  windows 
shutting  in  the  world. 

Not  such  a  bad  life,  after  all.  At  least  the  joys  of  hot 
water  have  not  been  proscribed  along  with  wine,  women, 
and  meat.  I  forthwith  go  to  the  bath,  a  chamber  dark 
and  cell-like,  and  open  to  the  winter  cold.  I  keep  well 
in  the  hot  water,  nor  loiter  in  the  corridors  between. 

There  is  loud  laughter  in  the  courtyard.  One  boy 
has  broken  out  into  song.  All  subsides  as  quickly  and 
as  suddenly  as  it  began — and  the  rippling  waters  of  the 
fountain  continue.  .  .  .  Then  come  soft  footsteps  in  the 
corridor.  It  is  the  bronze-silked  priest  with  the  register. 
...  At  the  same  time  he  asks  for  one  or  two  yen  for 
candles  for  Buddha.  I  am  to  rise  to  prayer  with  them 
at  five.  Well,  I  like  old  Buddha,  though  I  feel  sure  he 
will  receive  but  a  fraction  of  that  gift.  I  dare  say 


246  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Buddha  can  do  well  without  money,  though  he  seems  to 
have  an  insatiable  appetite  for  candles. 

Just  as  the  priest  stepped  out  and  pulled  the  paper 
doors  to,  a  crowd  of  workmen  or  pilgrims  came  into  the 
courtyard  below,  chatting  and  laughing.  How  like  the 
shifting  of  the  scenes  on  a  stage  is  this  life,  as  though 
each  incident  waited  for  its  turn  through  want  of  stage 
accommodation!  The  moments  lengthen,  the  murmur 
of  the  water  without  regains  its  place  in  consciousness, 
and  the  monastic  prominence  of  the  individual  comes  into 
its  own  again. 

Gradually,  as  the  diffused  light  through  the  paper 
windows  grows  dimmer  and  dimmer,  the  dull-red  char- 
coal in  the  volcano-like  pit  on  the  floor  looms  brighter 
and  brighter,  just  as  in  the  recurring  night  of  the  world 
the  sun's  brilliance  wakes  us  to  our  day  again. 

I  have  neighbors  now.  They  have  taken  the  room  on 
the  other  side  of  the  paper  doors.  In  the  sense  of  space 
it  can  no  doubt  be  called  a  room,  but  never  in  the  sense 
of  privacy.  From  the  latter  point  of  view,  it  is  really  a 
hey  a,  which  in  Japanese  means  a  room  or  apartment. 
There  is  a  suitable  sound  of  commotion  in  the  word. 
What  a  room  in  a  Japanese  house  really  comes  to  is  that 
all  can  make  all  kinds  of  noises  unabashed. 

Four  booms  of  the  evening  bell  startle  me  out  of 
reverie.  They  are  bells  of  which  Poe  wrould  have  made 
wonderful  use.  Not  so  resonant  as  those  at  the  great 
temples  of  Nara  and  Maya-san.  A  boy  shouts  to  others 
across  the  court  as  though  hurrying  them  on  to  assembly. 
Another  answers.  One  sings  a  droning  song  popular  in 
the  large  cities.  A  cough  from  my  neighbor.  Footsteps. 
And  every  fourth  ring  of  the  bell  is  echoed  by  a  reverberant 
grumbling  of  a  softer  bell  somewhere  in  the  distance. 

The  acolyte  comes  in  to  turn  on  the  electric  light. 
Even  in  a  monastery  there  is  electricity.  Modernism  is 


A  MONK  AND  HIS  FARE  247 

epidemic.  There  is  modernism  in  other  ways — namely, 
in  the  presence  of  women  in  the  village  outside  the 
monastery.  Hitherto  they  had  no  souls  to  save,  not- 
withstanding the  sweet  devotion  of  Yasodhara  to  Sid- 
dhattha  before  he  became  Buddha.  There  is  still  another 
bit  of  modernism.  Though  only  canine  beasts  were 
tolerated  at  Koya-san,  because  the  local  deity,  who  was 
fond  of  hunting,  had  promised  Kobo  Daishi,  the  founder, 
to  protect  his  monastery,  I  saw  bullocks  and  horses,  and 
if  I'm  not  mistaken  the  animal  I  photographed  was  a 
cow.  Kariba  Myohin,  the  Shinto  god,  has  evidently 
been  converted  to  modernism.  However,  a  little  ab- 
surdity is  still  necessary  to  religion.  Why  the  ban  con- 
tinues on  bamboo  I  cannot  understand. 

Faintly  the  drawl  of  a  priest  gets  a  hearing  in  spite  of 
the  rippling  fountain. 

I  dine.  The  acolyte  seems  remarkably  free  from 
acquisitiveness.  He  has  brought  my  dinner  and  moves 
about  as  though  pleased  to  serve.  He  is  neither  atten- 
tive nor  sullen.  He  has  an  able  assistant  in  the  form  of 
a  small  boy  who  is  about  twelve  years  old — so  is  the  dirt 
on  his  hands  and  shirt.  The  acolyte  departs,  leaving 
the  abridged  edition  of  himself  to  wait  upon  me.  He's 
a  cynical  little  fellow  for  honest  twelve.  He  can't 
make  me  out,  and  doesn't  care,  either.  He  watches  me 
eat  and  turns  his  head  aside  as  soon  as  I  look  at  him, 
but  answers  every  question  straightforwardly — as  far 
as  his  knowledge  goes.  He  has  a  father  and  mother, 
but  doesn't  know  what  country  he  came  from.  That 
was  a  stupid  question  and  I  shouldn't  have  asked  it. 
He's  from  Japan,  and  who  would  dare  to  probe  deeper 
than  that?  One  dare  not  suggest  him  to  be  Korean  or 
Chinese.  In  Japan  one  must  regard  every  one  as  of 
Yamato  origin  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  tranquillity. 

Well,  I've  eaten,  nor,  I  am  sure,  did  a  chicken  even  so 


248  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

much  as  walk  through  my  soup  or  soups;  there  were 
four  of  them.  Beef?  The  nearest  I  got  to  anything  in 
that  line  was  perhaps  in  the  fact  that  the  bullock  pulled 
the  wagon  that  brought  it.  Yet  they  all  look  healthy 
and  happy,  nor  would  J  repeat  the  vulgarism  of  all 
carnivorous  human  beings  that  "they  must  slip  out  to  a 
meat-shop  on  the  sly." 

Truth  to  tell,  there  is  more  than  meat  and  fish  on  the 
outside  of  this  monastery.  The  rickshaw  man  told  me 
so,  and  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  on  some  points 
rickshaw  men  are  as  truthful  as  ...  My  rickshaw  man 
said  he  didn't  care  for  women,  preferring  sake.  He  as- 
sured me  both  were  obtainable  in  the  village. 

But  that's  not  my  interest,  and  the  blasphemous  in- 
sinuation might  cost  one  dear.  We'll  not  insinuate. 
Why  do  so  when  there  are  facts?  Sake,  the  wine  of  the 
Far  East,  was  brought  to  me,  assumed  to  be  part  of  the 
meal  as  wine  is  in  continental  Europe.  It  went  back 
humiliated  and  scorned  by  an  unconverted  heathen  of 
the  West.  Not  so  the  other  offerings  within  this  temple. 
The  four  soups  consumed,  I  took  to  the  rice  and  daikon 
(a  pickled  radish,  which  smells  like  the  dickens)  and 
other  soured  vegetables,  after  which  went  precipitately 
some  hard,  tasty,  black  beans.  Could  a  monk  in  the 
making  start  off  more  hopefully  than  that?  By  to- 
morrow I  may  have  a  different  opinion,  but  to-day,  to- 
night? I  could  say  my  prayers  with  a  gusto. 

So,  it  seems,  I  shall  close  my  first  evening  in  a  monas- 
tery. For  a  moment  I  think  back  to  old  Japan,  live  a 
flash  of  life  as  it  has  been  lived  in  these  ancient  halls  for 
centuries.  Here  that  life  is  not  merely  historical  con- 
sciousness, but  vigorous  reality.  But  the  historical 
vision  has  slipped  away  and  is  disinclined  to  return. 

After  midnight  I  am  wakened  by  the  song  of  some 
monk.  The  stillness  of  the  night  and  his  deep,  sad  voice 


A  SANCTUARY  OF   SHADOWS  249 

make  what  in  the  cities  is  a  common  tune  pathetically 
human,  sadly  sweet  and  wholesome.  I  lie  within  the 
packs  of  futon,  warm  and  comfortable.  Horrors!  I 
promised  to  rise  to  say  my  prayers  to  Buddha  and  paid 
two  yen  for  the  privilege.  The  candles  will  be  burned 
out.  How  I  wish  these  pious  offices  could  be  postponed. 
But  the  priest  comes  to  wake  me  and  I  bolt  out  of  bed. 
In  the  other  compartments  the  stir  of  pilgrims,  their 
coughing  and  washing,  assures  me  I'm  not  the  only 
mortal  so  penalized. 

Now  through  the  snow-cold  corridors  which  zigzag 
for  at  least  two  hundred  feet  the  droning  of  priests  and 
monks  shows  that,  eager  as  I  am  to  taste  of  a  new  ex- 
perience, they  are  more  faithful  to  an  old.  It  is  but 
5.15  A.M.  Yet  as  I  enter  the  temple  it  is  plain  they  have 
well  advanced  in  prayer.  It  is  easy  for  my  eyes,  just 
rescued  from  sleep,  to  make  their  immaterial  way  about 
that  sanctuary  of  shadows  where  darkness  trembles  with 
droning  and  flickers  with  candle-light.  The  long,  narrow 
room  allows  only  for  a  side  view  of  the  setting.  The 
altar  in  the  middle  is  flanked  by  lacquered  and  gilded 
little  shrines  to  the  end  of  the  chamber.  The  gilt  upon 
the  black  lacquer  is  like  the  candle  flame  in  the  darkness. 
The  profuse  arrangement  of  massive  lacquer  tables 
laden  with  symbols  and  offerings,  and  the  beautiful  little 
tables  for  the  sutras  before  each  monk,  are  joy  in  the 
midst  of  emotion  sorrowing.  The  long  line  of  monks  sit- 
ting upon  their  knees,  with  their  backs  to  the  paper  doors 
(shoji),  leaves  of  the  room  but  a  narrow  aisle,  so  that  the 
pilgrim  must  occupy  the  space  to  the  right.  There  are 
thirty  of  these  suffering  souls,  all  old  and  worked  out. 
What  an  emaciated-looking  gathering!  The  priests 
and  monks  are  handsome  in  comparison.  But  even  age 
softens  in  the  presence  of  flickering  candles  and  undying 
chants. 

The  head  priest  sits  a  little  forward.     The  monks 


JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

repeat  the  sutras  rapidly,  and  then  out  of  their  prayer 
rises,  like  some  rich  flowering,  the  voice  of  the  head 
priest.  His  assurance  is  short  and  absolute.  The 
others  resume  their  chanting.  Once  they  stop  short 
and  from  among  them  soars  a  deep,  rich  voice,  followed 
once  again  by  the  entire  mass. 

It  strikes  me  as  an  extremely  non-individualistic  per- 
formance. The  pilgrims  don't  enter  in  at  all.  Later 
each  is  called  to  the  altar  to  put  incense  on  the  burner, 
and  Buddhist  symbols  are  pointed  out — tablets  of  an- 
cestors. I,  too,  am  called — and  service  is  at  an  end. 

I  breakfast  on  the  same  sort  of  food  as  that  on  which  I 
had  supped,  except  for  the  plateful  of  mochi  (rice  dough) 
arranged  like  a  chrysanthemum  and  showered  with 
colored  meal.  As  I  push  aside  the  paper  windows  above 
the  court  the  priest  sees  me  and  comes  up  to  my  room. 
He  has,  I  discover,  good  reasons  for  coming.  Since  the 
restoration  of  the  Emperor  to  real  power  Shintoism, 
the  cult  of  Emperor  and  ancestor  and  nature- worship, 
is  being  fostered,  though  Buddhism  is  still  nearest  the 
hearts  of  the  people.  The  imperial  exchequer  feathers 
the  Shinto  nest,  and  Buddhist  priests  find  life  more  diffi- 
cult. Hence  they  must  make  the  most  of  a  casual  guest 
like  me.  Though  entertainment  at  these  monasteries  is 
supposed  to  be  free  of  charge,  gratuities  equivalent  of 
what  one  would  pay  at  a  first-class  inn  are  expected. 
The  bronze-silked  priest  does  not  wait  for  me  to  settle 
my  "accounts,"  though  I  have  already  given  him  candle 
money.  He  receives  my  contribution  with  greedy  ease. 
Hardly  has  the  money  touched  his  hand  when  he  asks 
for  a  "present"  for  the  very  boys  he  had  told  me  not  to 
tip  the  night  before.  It  is  all  so  cheap  and  so  funny.  He 
exacts  all  he  can,  but  takes  good  care  to  call  the  graft, 
each  time,  a  "present." 

When  this  commercial  transaction  is  completed,  a  boy 


A  WORLD  OF  TOMBS  251 

is  sent  to  guide  me  through  the  cemetery.  He  doesn't 
know  a  word  of  English.  Chamberlain  says  he  is  a 
cicerone,  but  I  don't  know.  At  any  rate,  he  doesn't 
sing  into  my  ear  the  myriad  names  of  dead  who  left  no 
record  of  themselves  other  than  tombstones. 

The  world  is  full  of  cemeteries,  but  nowhere  is  a  ceme- 
tery so  full  of  life.  In  the  midst  of  a  grove  of  giant 
cryptomerias  between  whose  towering  branches  float 
small  patches  of  sky  like  the  small  patches  of  snow  lying 
at  their  feet,  hundreds  of  weathered  monuments  eye  one 
another  in  cynical  regard,  and  the  gray  stone,  grown 
darker  with  age,  stands  in  mute  testimony  to  the  un- 
dying fear  of  being  forgotten.  Yet  out  of  that  vast 
collection  of  stones  only  an  occasional  name  is  not  lost 
upon  the  passer-by.  What  a  vast  mobilization  of  dead 
heroes!  A  place  in  the  village  cemetery  seemed  too 
humble  to  them.  They  had  their  ashes  or  bones  brought 
there  from  the  farthest  regions  of  Japan,  only  to  lose  in 
prestige  through  vain  assumption.  General,  saint, 
scholar,  all  looked  with  hope  for  eternal  fame  in  this 
vast  galaxy  of  the  dead,  and  those  very  pretensions 
brought  humiliation  upon  them.  For  the  very  merchant 
upon  whom  they  looked  with  contempt  is  now  outdoing 
them.  The  narikin  (nouveau  riche),  with  his  vast  war 
profits,  is  rearing  tombs  and  monuments  which  far  out- 
shine their  ancient  simplicity.  A  thousand  years  from 
now  they,  too,  will  be  as  shabby  as  the  others,  but  they 
are  on  the  whole  better  and  more  human  than  the 
ancient  piles  of  stones. 

Relatives  of  those  not  so  fortunate  as  to  be  able  to 
have  their  bodies  brought  here  and  tombs  set  upon 
them  save  a  tooth  or  the  Adam's  apple  and  send 
it  wrapped  in  paper  to  be  thrown  into  a  circular 
building  containing  the  teeth  or  bones  of  thousands  of 
others. 

Thus   everything  aims  to   symbolize   the  numerical 


252  JAPAN— REAL  AND   IMAGINARY 

strength  of  the  dead,  even  the  flickering  candles  which 
nod  by  the  thousands,  in  honor  of  the  disembodied  souls, 
in  a  chamber  stored  with  black  darkness.  Yet  the  Hall 
of  Ten  Thousand  Lamps  is  no  longer  lit  to  its  full  candle- 
power  and  looks  like  the  mouth  of  an  old  man  with 
empty  places  where  teeth  had  been. 

The  tomb  of  Kobo  Daishi  himself  stands  behind  this 
Hall.  It  is  only  a  small,  unimportant-looking  little 
shrine  on  a  slope  studded  with  cryptomerias.  The 
nearest  any  one  can  approach  is  to  the  wooden  fence. 
Here  the  saint  is  said  to  be  sitting,  wrapped  in  contem- 
plation. 

Yet  better  than  following  the  trails  to  the  tombs  of 
dead  saints  is  meeting  with  the  kindly  smile  of  the 
oldest  living  man. 

It  is  now  late  enough  in  the  morning  for  me  to  be  able 
to  examine  the  works  of  art.  Here  one  pursues  Kobo 
Daishi  from  one  corridor  to  another.  Soft-painted 
panels  of  men  of  wisdom  hang  in  the  shadows  and  glit- 
tering brass  trappings  that  illustrate  Buddhist  verities 
are  set  before  them.  Screens  of  various  degrees  of 
beauty  painted  by  the  best  of  the  old  artists.  .  .  .  But 
the  bronze-silked  priest  seems  eager  now  to  be  done 
with  me.  He  does  not  see  that  a  real  worshiper,  not  a 
hypnotized  faith-swallower,  has  come.  He  opens  the 
shrine  in  which  stands  an  image  of  Kobo  Daishi  carved 
by  the  great  saint  himself  (everything  under  the  Rising 
Sun  seems  to  have  been  the  work  of  his  hands).  He 
offers  me  a  small  replica  of  the  saint  for  five  yen,  for 
which  the  curio-dealer  accustomed  to  cheating  tourists 
asks  only  two.  He  leads  me  from  one  empty  chamber 
to  another,  repeating  explanations  interspersed  with  a 
dash  of  commercialism,  urging  me  to  buy  images  and 
scrolls — all  this  to  one  who  had  come  to  imbibe  inspira- 
tion and  relief  from  commerce.  Such  is  the  state  to 
which  Buddhism  has  come  in  Shinto  Japan.  He  points 


THE  DAIDOKORO  253 

out  only  the  gifts  of  the  rich — a  shrine-incased  tablet 
costing  a  hundred  yen,  a  special  recess  for  the  shrines  of 
the  heads  of  Mitsui  Bishi  Kaisha,  the  great  banking 
concern,  and  Kawasaki  of  the  Kawasaki  Dockyards,  and 
Suzuki,  of  Suzuki  &  Co.,  whose  Kobe  properties  were 
destroyed  by  the  rioters  for  forcing  up  the  price  of  rice 
last  year. 

Then  we  are  shown  the  room  in  which  Hidetsugu,  the 
adopted  son  of  Hideyoshi,  the  great  general,  committed 
harakiri  by  order  of  his  benefactor.  It  is  quiet  and  un- 
pretentious, and  stimulates  strange  reveries.  But  the 
"guide"  is  impatient  and  keeps  pulling  me  away.  We 
drift  away  from  this,  however,  lose  ourselves  behind 
shoji  (paper  doors)  and  corridors,  pass  from  temple  to 
temple,  and  return  by  another  way  to  the  one  in  which  I 
had  stayed  the  night.  When  I  ask  to  be  shown  the 
priests'  quarters,  he  says,  "It's  too  dirty."  Buddhism 
is  as  ashamed  of  poverty  as  is  every  creed  on  the  face  of 
the  earth.  But  I  do  manage  to  get  into  the  daidokoro, 
the  big  kitchen.  A  tremendous  room  with  heavy 
rafters,  it  is  set  with  a  watering-trough,  store,  and  fire- 
places large  enough  to  feed  an  army.  Water  from  a 
spring  comes  in  a  thin,  steady  stream  through  a  bamboo 
pipe.  Around  the  open  fire  squat  a  dozen  men  and  boys. 
The  flames  cannot  reach  any  of  the  rafters,  but  the 
smoke  fills  the  tremendous  shaft  (about  ten  feet  long  by 
twelve  feet)  which  hangs  from  the  roof  to  within  six 
feet  of  the  ground.  In  semi-darkness  men  pound  with 
heavy  wooden  hammers  and  turn  with  dexterous  hands 
the  mochi  (rice  dough)  which  at  New  Year's  is  the 
delight  of  every  Japanese,  even  a  priest.  They  are  like 
underground  dwarfs  with  their  fires  and  their  pound- 
ing. These  kitchens  are  more  interesting  than  the 
unused  chambers  of  the  abbot  with  their  screens  and 
settings. 

The  last  place  to  visit  is  the  Kondo  or  Golden  Hall. 


254  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

It  is  a  gorgeous  amassing  of  Buddhist  art  with  some 
exquisite  details.  Unbiased  as  I  am,  I  must  confess  it 
tires  me.  There  is  too  much  sheen  and  too  little  in- 
spiration, bent  on  teaching  more  the  hatefulness  of  evil 
than  the  loveliness  of  good. 

I  have  seen  it  all  now — and  I  tremble  before  the 
covetous  eyes  of  that  priest  in  bronze  silk.  So  I  leave 
him  to  count  his  yen,  and  carry  away  with  me  a  lovely 
memory  and  some  solemn  thoughts. 

The  Buddhism  that  I  have  seen  is  a  tainted  and  a 
vanishing  thing.  Dear  as  it  is  to  the  hearts  of  common 
men,  it  languishes  under  the  imperial  government. 
Shinto  shrines  have  been  stripped  of  all  the  Buddhist 
symbols  they  once  contained,  and  officialism  is  doing  its 
best  to  supplant  the  worship  of  Buddha  by  the  worship 
of  the  Tenno.  Bereft  of  the  imperial  gold,  the  priests 
are  resorting  to  all  manner  of  means  of  securing  funds. 
In  and  about  Kobe  and  elsewhere  they  are  pursuing  a 
thriving  business  by  saving  the  souls  of  the  fune-narikin, 
who  have  grown  rich  on  war  profits.  Out  of  the  large 
donations  which  they  require  to  assure  the  salvation  of 
these  new  millionaires,  they  are  erecting  stone  columns 
engraved  with  the  names  of  the  donors.  Of  these  there 
are  now  more  than  eighty-eight  in  and  about  Kobe. 
Some  priests  have  gone  even  farther.  Otani,  brother- 
in-law  of  the  Emperor  and  abbot  of  one  of  the  biggest 
temples  in  Japan,  caused  a  scandal  by  selling  the  tem- 
ple's treasures.  He  took  to  western  ways  and  built  a 
palace  for  himself  upon  one  of  the  mountains  near  Kobe, 
bringing  back  with  him  from  a  trip  to  England  two  young 
boys  who  were  to  act  as  pages.  These  were  not  quite 
satisfied  with  the  way  the  promises  materialized  and 
obtained  their  release  by  recourse  to  the  help  of  the 
foreign  community.  His  palatial  residence  has  since 
been  bought  by  Mr.  Kohara,  the  Japanese  copper-king. 
This  practical  abbot  has  now  resigned  and  is  wander- 


HIDEYOSHl  S  TOM II  LOOKS  DOWN*  THROUGH  THIS  TORII  UPON*  A  CITY  HE  ROSE 

TO   RULE 


THREE    HUNDRED    THOUSAND    KOREAN     EARS    AND    NOSES    NOURISH    THESE 

Al.II-N    FLCVVEKS 


LAKE    BIWA   LIES    STRETCHING   NORTHWARD,    COMPLETELY   SURROUNDED   BY 

MOUNTAINS 


MINAMI7A,  THE  LARGEST  THEATER  IN  KYOTO,  UPON  THE  EAST  BANK  OF  THE 

KAMOGAWA 


BARTER  AND  BUDDHA  255 

ing  about   the   South   Seas,   trying  to  establish  ideal 
colonies. 

So  it  is  that  the  joy  of  barter  pervades  the  worship 
of  Buddha.  Imperial  divinity  seeks  to  triumph  over 
the  saint  whom  common  men  have  loved  for  over  a 
thousand  years. 

17 


XVI 

CLASSICAL    JAPAN — KYOTO 

'  YOTO  first  came  into  my  life  as  a  prohibition. 
In  the  full  flush  of  adventurous  prospects  I 
had  set  Japan  as  my  goal  and  was  ready  to 
sail  across  the  Pacific,  but  for  one  thing — I 
could  not  get  passage.  And  the  reason  for 
the  rush  was  that  Kyoto  was  about  to  see  the  one 
hundred  and  twenty-second  Emperor  placed  upon  the 
throne.  So  I  set  off  for  Australia,  instead.  Two  years 
later  I  was  fully  determined  to  take  up  my  residence 
there  for  a  spell,  but  fate  again  kept  me  away.  Finally, 
after  making  several  hurried  visits,  but  always  being 
swerved  in  other  directions,  I  succeeded  in  weighing 
anchor — in  the  deepest  sea  of  classical  Japan.  I  do  not 
regret  these  delays,  for  it  seems  that  a  traveler,  like  the 
navigator,  should  try  his  skill  on  inland  waterways  be- 
fore venturing  upon  the  ocean. 

History  passes  judgment  on  the  greatness  of  cities  as 
on  men.  The  picturesque  inconsequence  into  which 
Nara  has  sunk  is  fame  commensurate  only  with  the 
mythology  it  grew  up  in.  Fable  may  be  a  good  stimu- 
lant to  youth;  maturity  requires  a  surer  soil  to  nourish 
it.  It  was,  then,  the  acme  of  real  wisdom  on  the  part  of 
Emperor  Kwammu  when  he  removed  his  palace  from  the 
land  of  shifting  Mikados — Yamato — to  Kyoto.  Lovely 
as  are  the  hills  in  Yamato,  the  plains  of  Yamashiro  are 
more  so.  From  a  geographical  point  of  view,  it  cannot 
be  said  that  the  new  site  was  an  improvement  in  itself, 


THE  CITY  OF  PEACE  257 

yet  it  has  a  vital  bearing  on  the  history  of  Japan.  From 
being  conquerors,  living  on  the  edge  of  the  conquered  ter- 
ritory for  some  seven  hundred  years,  the  Japanese  moved 
farther  inland.  Kyoto  is  really  the  heart  of  Japan — of 
the  Japan  of  yesterday,  of  to-day,  of  to-morrow.  It  lies 
on  the  way  between  all  the  important  points  of  the 
island.  At  that  time,  with  national  unity  anything  but 
established,  it  is  certain  that  nationalization  would  have 
been  an  impossibility  had  the  capital  been  elsewhere. 

Kyoto  lies  on  a  wide  plain  with  a  horseshoe  of  moun- 
tains around  it,  the  opening  being  toward  Osaka  on  the 
Inland  Sea.  Beyond  the  hills  to  the  east  lies  Biwa-ko, 
the  largest  lake  in  Japan.  Within  the  hills  to  the  south 
runs  the  Hodzugawa,  a  river  whose  rapids  tear  along 
between  boulders  and  precipices  till  they  reach  the 
southern  plains.  From  the  north  comes  the  Kamogawa 
and  the  Takanogawa,  which  meet  and  make  their  com- 
panionable way  through  the  heart  of  the  city,  giving  it  a 
distinction  and  a  charm  incomparable. 

Whatever  has  happened  elsewhere  in  Japan  is  foreign 
to  it.  In  Kyoto  the  blood  of  these  people  has  been 
spilled,  the  good  and  the  bad,  the  noble  and  the  ignoble; 
the  art  and  the  reality  of  life  found  substance  out  of 
which  to  make  a  world.  Within  the  radius  of  these  few 
miles  more  sorrow  and  more  joy  have  flourished  than  in 
all  the  rest  of  the  Empire  combined.  And  Kyoto  has 
withstood  it  all  with  real  genius.  With  the  greatness 
of  genius  it  has  taken  its  cue  from  life  and  played  its 
part.  Swept  by  fire  and  plague,  wracked  by  conqueror 
and  would-be  conqueror,  infested  by  charlatan  and 
would-be  priest — Kyoto  has  stood  in  sweet  simplicity, 
mocking  the  would-be  assassin  and  minimizing  the 
would-be  god,  and  remaining  the  city  of  beauty  and  peace 
withal.  The  Mikado  sought  to  keep  out  the  foreign 
barbarians — and,  thanks  to  him  who  looks  after  real 
worth  in  life  and  saves  it  from  annihilation — he  sue- 


258  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

ceeded.  The  foreign  and  native  barbarians,  the  bar- 
barians who  would  turn  everything  to  trade  without 
soul — these  have  been  kept  out  of  Kyoto. 

Yet  Kyoto  is  not  behind  time.  It  is  as  modern  as 
any  city  in  Japan.  It  has  more  street-cars  than  Kobe, 
its  buildings  are  as  fine  and  up-to-date  as  any  in  the 
Empire.  But  it  seems  that  modernism  when  it  reaches 
Kyoto  is  bereft  of  much  that  is  vulgar  or  becomes 
purified. 

No  city  I  have  so  far  seen  in  the  Far  East  has  in  it  the 
makings  of  so  fine  a  world  metropolis  as  has  Kyoto. 
Its  wide  avenues,  its  leisurely  spirit  in  which  dreams 
count  for  as  much  as  profit,  even  its  people,  Japanese 
like  all  Japanese,  are  still,  it  seems,  a  thousand  ages 
ahead  of  the  others  in  real  civilization.  Kyoto  plays  its 
part — not  to  charm,  which  is  such  a  deceptive  thing  to 
do  (and  Kyoto  is  no  flirt),  but  it  simply  opens  its  doors 
for  you  to  come  and  live  there  if  you  will.  But  to 
fawn  upon  you — it  is  too  much  of  an  artist  for  that. 

The  children  play  on  the  streets,  the  narrow  lanes  are 
full  of  busy  folk,  women  and  men  sharing  their  labors 
as  in  no  other  civilized  country.  The  restaurants  are 
cleaner,  more  refined,  and  more  truly  westernized  than 
in  Kobe.  Men  come  in  for  foreign  meals  with  dignity 
and  bearing,  clean  in  person  and  refined  in  manner.  At 
one  of  the  numerous  bridges  which  span  the  Kamogawa — 
swift-flowing  water  sifting  the  moonlight — crowds  pass, 
cheerful,  picturesque,  without  swagger.  Two  little 
girls  with  most  elaborate  ornamentation,  almost  like 
Christmas  trees,  go  happily  on  their  way.  Men  are 
slightly  drunk,  enjoying  themselves.  Then  the  moving- 
picture  theater  lets  out  a  lively,  lightly  clad  throng. 
The  box-office  says,  "Admission  for  a  cheat  Yi."  That 
is,  any  Japanese  or  foreigner  who  must  have  so  unneces- 
sary a  thing  as  a  seat  should  pay  double  for  it.  Then 
a  Japanese  addresses  me  in  an  English  not  to  be  mis- 


PRESTIGE  IN  INTIMACY  259 

taken — he  lived  in  Nebraska  for  twenty  years.  We  go 
to  a  large  refreshment-place  on  the  river  bank.  It  is 
cheap,  but  the  crowd  is  interesting.  Some  foreigners 
arrive — a  party  of  poor  Russians — mother  and  children — 
one  little  girl  dressed  in  Japanese  kimono;  a  party  of 
well-to-do  Russians  who  later  drive  away  in  a  limousine. 
This  is  a  little  picture  of  Kyoto  life. 

To  look  down  this  river  on  a  moonlight  night  and  see 
its  banks  alight  with  tea-houses  in  full  flush  of  summer 
happiness  is  to  wish  once  and  for  all  one  were  a  Japanese 
with  no  knowledge  of  other  ways  and  customs  to  drag 
him  back  to  dullness. 

And  to  look  toward  one's  left  along  the  broad  Shijo- 
dori,  the  main  street  of  the  city,  is  to  wish  one  were  a 
business  man  with  a  little  shop  on  that  spacious  street 
with  its  thousands  of  electric  eyes.  No  city  in  Japan 
is  so  well  laid  out,  and  no  street  so  well  lighted.  And 
yet  no  place  in  the  Orient  is  so  conservative,  so  "unpro- 
gressive,"  so  satisfied  with  the  part  it  has  played  in 
Nipponese  life.  Grateful  is  the  seeker  after  peace  when 
he  comes  to  Kyoto. 

Wherever  the  eye  turns  it  is  met  with  verdure  and 
art  in  thoughtful  orderliness.  When  the  sun  rises  its 
radiance  tips  a  dozen  temples,  pagodas,  and  tombs  of 
great  men,  and  as  impartially  lights  up  the  hills  to  the 
west  where  stands  the  Golden  Pavilion.  When  it  sets 
it  eclipses  the  latter  and  gilds  with  its  last  light 
this  dreaming  world.  There  are  cities  about  which  one 
can  say  much  in  general,  but  which,  when  examined 
closely,  are  found  wanting;  cities  like  Fuji-san,  which 
from  the  distance  is  divine — within  touch,  ashes  and 
cinders.  Not  so  Kyoto.  Revel  in  its  vast  expanse  as 
long  as  one  will,  it  never  loses  prestige  in  intimacy. 
And  lest  it  appear  that  I  am  carried  away  by  general 
impressions,  I  shall  picture  each  phase  of  its  outer  life 
as  it  makes  its  way  within  the  cycle  of  a  year. 


26o  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Winter  gives  us  its  New  Year  festivals,  spring  its 
blossoms,  summer  the  Gion  matsuri,  fall  the  maple 
leaves;  and  the  whole  is  closely  drawn  by  the  pursuit 
of  art,  which  even  in  these  days  will  not  yield  its  soul, 
however  much  it  sells  its  body,  to  the  toils  of  the  slave. 

New  Year's  Eve  in  Kyoto  is  different  from  what  it 
was  last  year  in  Kobe.  There  a  certain  display  was 
evident  which  in  spite  of  its  obvious  narikinism,  was 
pleasant  and  interesting.  It  looked  so  like  a  new  suit. 
But  here  in  Kyoto  the  Happy  New  Year  symbols  of 
sawed-off  bamboo  set  amid  short  pines  in  a  round  base 
of  logs  two  or  three  inches  thick  and  eighteen  inches 
high,  and  tied  with  straw  rope,  are  more  shabby  where 
seen,  and  seen  less  frequently.  These  gate  decorations, 
and  others  of  mochi  (large  cakes  of  rice  dough) 
on  greens  topped  with  a  large  lobster  and  an  unedible 
orange — both  of  which  symbolize  longevity — are  by  no 
means  elaborate.  The  streets  are  here  and  there  strung 
with  colored  paper  bunting.  After  dark  I  wandered 
about  the  unfrequented  byways.  Everything  was  set- 
tling into  inactivity.  Door-steps  were  being  washed  and 
sprinkled  with  water.  But  on  the  business  streets  both 
patrons  and  proprietors  seemed  more  hurried  than 
usual. 

But  Kyoto  would  be  nothing  at  all  were  it  like  any 
other  place  in  Japan,  and  like  none  other  it  plays  its 
part  honestly,  picturesquely,  and  without  ostentation. 
So  at  five  in  the  afternoon  the  priests  at  the  Shinto 
temple — Gion — borrow  some  fire  from  a  sacred  urn 
which,  according  to  the  knowledge  of  the  average,  has 
burned  there  without  being  once  extinguished  from  time 
immemorial.  They  distribute  it  among  the  numerous 
burners  which  hang  under  the  eaves  on  the  temple 
veranda.  Here  half  a  dozen  of  them  dispense  its 
generous  flame  to  the  multitude. 

From  that  hour  the  whole  of  Shijo-machi  is  an  al- 


PERENNIAL  FIRES  261 

ternating  current  of  humanity.  On  the  left  it  makes 
its  way  to  the  shrine,  purchasing  five-foot  ropes  of 
straw  and  bamboo  from  hawksters  shouting,  "Hinawa, 
go  sen"  (Hinawa  being  a  rope-match  for  a  match-lock, 
five  sen).  Many  of  the  venders  look  like  maidens  with 
streams  of  hair  from  their  heads;  others  like  women 
with  marumage,  a  Japanese  woman's  style  of  hair-dress. 
On  the  right-hand  side  the  return  current  is  a  picture  of 
shadows  twirling  little  sparks  as  they  move  along. 
They  have  been  to  the  shrine.  There  are  strange  rituals 
in  the  world,  but  for  simplicity  none  compares  with  this. 
At  the  steps  leading  to  the  shrine  the  crowd  is  thick. 
On  the  way  up  the  path  it  lingers  before  the  usual  toys 
and  trinkets.  It  is  slow  and  undramatic.  At  this 
shrine,  on  the  night  of  the  24th  of  July,  joy  and  voluptu- 
ous paganism  stir  the  passions  in  men.  Now  they 
move  quietly,  stop  at  the  various  outposts  upon  which 
dispensations  of  fire  are  hung  to  relieve  the  rush,  and 
light  the  ends  of  their  ropes.  Some  are  to  be  satisfied 
with  no  half-measures,  but  insist  on  getting  their  fire 
from  the  fountain-head.  They  press  on,  handing  their 
rope-ends  to  the  priests  on  the  balcony,  who,  having 
gathered  a  handful,  stick  the  ends  in  the  fire.  Then, 
because  the  tangled  ropes  to  which  each  owner  holds 
tenaciously  cannot  be  disentangled,  the  priest  dashes 
the  burning  ropes  back  upon  them,  giving  them  a  bap- 
tism of  fire  not  without  its  danger.  At  times  it  seems  a 
baby  riot  may  ensue,  but,  each  having  regained  his  rope, 
the  group  passes  quickly  on  and  another  rushes  to  fill 
the  vacancy.  The  priests  give  no  impression  of  emo- 
tional interest  nor  of  impatience.  And  thus  the  hun- 
dred thousand  homes  which  make  up  the  city  of  Kyoto 
are  all  afforded  some  sacred  fire  with  which  to  start  the 
first  breakfast  of  the  new  year. 

On  the  morning  of  the  next  day  the  usual  visiting 
commences,  most  people  having  slept  but  two  or  three 


262  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

hours.  Here  at  the  hotel  I  am  invited  to  special  break- 
fast, served  with  such  a  display  of  beautiful  lacquer- ware 
as  makes  me  feel  these  are  indeed  a  wonderful  people. 

The  New  Year  visits  becoming  a  nuisance,  many  send 
cards  by  mail  and  others  meet  their  friends  at  some  public 
building  to  exchange  greetings.  But  Kyoto's  theater 
district  is  alive  with  traffic  of  all  kinds.  Every  restau- 
rant being  closed,  for  the  employees  of  the  hotel  have  the 
day  off,  I  go  into  a  little  Japanese  noodle-shop.  One  of 
the  helpers  has  raven-black  hair  hanging  down  to  his 
shoulders.  He's  an  attraction.  A  few  guests  arrive. 
One  old  woman  enters  in  a  fit  of  coughing  and  seats 
herself  at  the  hibachi,  smoking  patiently  till  the  bowl  of 
rice  is  brought. 

On  the  street  I  meet  two  foreigners  from  Kobe.  They 
are  stopping  at  the  big  hotel  and  have  come  down  to  buy 
a  pack  of  playing-cards.  Along  the  street  they  roughly 
inveigle  a  Japanese  to  lead  them.  In  no  other  country 
would  strangers  submit  to  such  impudence.  In  the  store 
the  woman  asks  two  yen  fifty  a  pack.  Because  one  of 
them  had  paid  a  yen  a  pack  in  Kobe,  he  flies  into  a  rage, 
rudely  snatches  the  cards  from  her  hands,  flings  the 
money  down  before  her — and  back  they  rush  to  the  hotel. 
I  wonder  if  that  is  what  has  spoiled  the  Japanese.  And 
I'm  ashamed  of  my  own  impatience  with  them.  The 
ill-temper  of  the  westerner  is  a  sad  commentary  on  our 
civilization. 

Japanese,  even  when  drunk,  are  not  as  ill-dispositioned 
as  are  we.  Were  Japan  to  become  a  prohibition  coun- 
try the  world  would  lose  one  of  the  most  interesting 
phases  of  pure  impulse  still  left  to  it.  Without  sake  there 
would  be  no  flower-viewing  in  Japan,  and  without  that 
all  the  cherry-trees  and  plum-trees  would  rot  and  die. 
Spring  in  Japan  is  the  time  of  Omar.  If  ever  a  people 
flung  its  winter  garment  of  repentance  into  the  fire  of 
spring,  it  was  not  the  Persians;  and  indeed  it  is  not  to 


BEERU  AND  PAGEANTS  263 

be  doubted — and  I'm  sure  there  will  be  many  a  Japanese 
to  prove  it — the  whole  spirit  and  philosophy  of  the  Ru- 
baiyat  came  to  Khayyam  from  Japan.  Why,  is  there 
not  the  very  word  saki — The  Eternal  Saki — there  to 
challenge  contradiction?  One  of  the  songs  of  the 
samurai  was  stolen  from  Japan  by  Omar  and  incor- 
porated into  his.  Here  it  is: 

Onaji  shinu  nara  Sakura  no  shite,  yoi,  yoi — 
Shiinda  kabane  ni,  liana  ga  chiru,  yoi,  yoi,  dekansho. 

Which  has  various  interpretations,  one  being  that  the 
samurai  was  so  happy  with  life  that  he  asks  that  it  be 
like  the  cherry-blossom — burst  into  bloom  and  fall  to  the 
ground,  all  in  the  space  of  a  few  days. 

In  Maruyama  Park  in  spring  with  its  numerous  cherry- 
trees — one  over  two  hundred  years  old — the  grounds  are 
studded  with  open  tea-houses.  The  usual  mixture  of 
unimpressive  imagery  and  barter !  But  this  park  is  not 
like  most  city  parks.  It  seems  to  be  the  shaggy  tail  of 
the  mountain  drooping  toward  the  city,  and  the  lofty 
structures  of  the  temples  merge  into  it.  In  summer  it 
loses  its  freshness,  and,  being  grassless,  seems  bare  and 
desolate.  But  after  a  rain  the  little  streams  wake  up, 
the  tiny  bridges  put  out  their  chests  with  self-importance 
— and  all  poor  man  can  do  is  wander  about,  gazing. 
That  is,  the  silly  foreigner,  sedate  and  proper.  What 
does  he  know  of  life?  All  he  knows  is  to  sit  down 
in  an  easy-chair  and  enjoy  Omar.  Not  so  the  Japanese. 
He  lives  it.  He  gazes,  but  through  a  film  of  forgetful- 
ness.  He  becomes  boisterous,  but  as  a  deer  when  the 
fire  of  spring  wakes  in  its  heart. 

It  may  not  be  a  fair  assumption,  but  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  reason  all  this  boisterous  celebration  of  spring 
in  Japan  has  become  common  and  vulgar  is  because  the 
Japanese  are  taking  to  beer  and  whiskey.  Go  where 
you  will,  Kirin  beeru  and  Asahi  beeru  and  Sakura  beeru 


264  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

entice,  with  praise  of  themselves,  the  deluded  Japanese. 
Yet  the  native  never  goes  holidaying  without  his  gallon 
sake  bottles  with  him.  He  goes  to  the  parks  and  he 
goes  to  his  temple  grounds — and  all  in  the  same  mood 
and  manner. 

Kyoto  without  its  temples  and  shrines  would,  of 
course,  not  be  Kyoto.  They  must  be  considered  apart 
from  the  outpourings  which  become  the  streams  of  re- 
ligious emotion,  and  which  are  called  matsuri  (festivals). 
The  temples  and  shrines  are  the  spirit  of  these  people  in 
a  state  of  inactivity.  Yet,  inactive  only  as  the  spirit  of 
life,  cramped  and  curtailed  by  the  pressure  of  necessity. 
The  flood  of  human  emotion  must  gather  before  it  can 
issue  forth,  and  so  month  by  month  it  accumulates  for 
the  great  outpouring.  Nowhere  in  the  world  does  it 
do  so  as  regularly  as  in  Japan.  In  Europe  and  America 
pageantry  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  Religion  there  has 
become  so  formal  that  it  has  lost  its  meaning.  Going 
to  church  on  Sunday  is  too  frequent  to  become  vital. 
It  is  a  constant  loss  of  emotional  energy  through  leakage. 
It  remained  for  the  labor  movement,  for  political  im- 
pulse, to  revive  it.  When  the  history  of  pageantry  in 
America  is  written,  it  will  begin  with  that  of  the  Paterson 
(New  Jersey)  silk-strike  sympathizers.  In  religious  force 
there  was  nothing  in  America  to  compare  with  it.  The 
labor  parades  lack  unity,  seem  mere  lip  protests.  But 
that  pageant  was  the  portrayal  of  emotional  worth  which 
suffering  alone  seems  able  to  evoke  in  mankind. 

In  Japan,  because  the  religions  are  not  so  cramping 
in  their  hold  upon  the  emotions  of  the  people,  pageantry 
has  not  yet  passed  away.  It  is  still  vital  with  the  people, 
and  the  outpouiing  might  well  be  the  envy  of  the  West. 

But  before  we  can  consider  this  phase  of  Japanese  life 
attention  must  be  given  to  the  temples,  which  are  the 
vessels  or  the  fountain-heads  for  the  springs  from  which 
it  flows. 


SYMBOLS  AND  SADNESS  265 

To  attempt  to  do  justice  to  all  the  shrines  and  temples 
of  Kyoto  would  require  a  book  in  itself  and  several 
years  of  patient  study.  All  that  I  can  plead  in  justifi- 
cation of  my  touching  upon  some  of  them  is  that  I  have 
merely  entered  and  listened  and  watched,  stood  with 
reverence  and  adoration,  and  now  give  expression  only 
to  that  which  issued  freely.  A  western  mind,  unbiased 
by  beliefs  and  preconceived  notions,  ought  to  be  a  good 
filter  through  which  pure  truth  could  pass.  I  do  not 
claim  to  be  better  than  others.  I  do  not  claim  to  have 
discovered  any  special  truth  in  Buddhism  or  Shintoism, 
but  I  have  allowed  them  to  influence  me  as  light  or 
shadow  affects  a  film.  If  in  the  coloring  I  have  since 
added  to  the  print  I  am  not  credited  with  being  an  artist, 
well,  at  least  I  shall  have  made  a  good  record. 

A  massive  two-storied  gateway,  disconnected  but  still 
part  of  the  architectural  scheme,  stands  at  the  head  of  a 
stone  stairway  with  about  a  hundred-odd  steps.  There 
is  no  show  of  unusual  sanctity  about  it.  No  steady  flow 
inward  or  outward  disturbs  the  spirit  of  the  place. 
Those  lingering  seem  to  be  part  of  it.  So,  too,  the  loi- 
terers about  the  great  wide  space  of  the  temple  grounds. 
People  seem  to  be  afraid  of  showing  their  reverence  too 
much.  In  order  to  enjoy  the  peace  of  mind  the  temples 
afford  the  weary,  they  come  as  though  for  an  altogether 
different  purpose.  They  do  not  care  to  pray  too  openly, 
lest  their  fellow-men  see  too  clearly  into  their  troubled 
conscience.  It  is  not  secretiveness,  but  just  a  desire  to 
solve  their  own  emotional  problems  without  being 
meddled  with.  We  of  the  West  proverbialize  against 
wearing  our  emotions  on  our  sleeves,  yet  what  does  too 
much  prayer  come  to  but  that?  And  often,  indeed,  in 
the  dark  shadows  of  a  shrine  where  barely  a  candle 
flickers  in  the  face  of  man  stands  a  man  or  woman  or 
girl — and  prays. 

Shoes  must  be  removed  before  entering  or  even  touch- 


266  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

ing  the  great  wooden  steps  of  the  temple.  An  old 
woman  has  a  pair  of  cloth  covers  for  the  foreigner  if  he 
chooses.  But  the  touch  of  one's  stocking-feet  upon  the 
steps  sends  a  slight  thrill  through  one.  As  I  stand  upon 
the  mats  of  that  vast  chamber  of  sanctity,  barred  from 
trespass  into  the  greater  half  of  it,  as  I  lose  myself  in 
confused  gazing  at  the  numerous  gilt  hangings,  wooden 
and  gilt  columns,  altars  beset  with  brass  furnishings — 
as  I  stand  there  trying  to  grasp  some  meaning  and  listen 
with  pained  sympathy  to  the  regular,  melancholy  droning 
and  drumming  of  the  priest — my  heart  reveres,  though 
my  mind  rebels.  With  what  unwavering  regularity 
sound  the  strokes  on  that  wooden  drum,  and  with  what 
sorrowful  concord  he  chants  his  meaningful  hymn! 
Why  so  sad? 

Why  has  man  come  into  the  world  for  so  much  sorrow? 
Why  should  he  give  himself  to  such  lamentation,  resign 
the  grace,  the  freedom  of  motion  and  of  action,  and  rivet 
himself  to  such  rigid  formalism?  Man  was  not  made  to 
root,  but  to  wander,  to  seek,  to  instil.  It  seems  to  me 
that  any  religion,  however  much  accepted  by  humanity, 
is  a  denial  of  the  principle  of  life  and  growth  if  it  bids 
even  one  man  to  shut  himself  away  from  the  cleansing 
process  of  motion,  of  wavering  in  thought  and  action, 
and  confines  him  to  such  a  state  of  immobility.  The 
cramping  of  the  body  and  the  regular  drumming  were 
painful  to  look  upon.  How  can  a  man  feel  his  spirit 
free  through  such  checking  of  his  physical  impulses? 

A  family  is  let  into  the  inclosure.  A  young  priest 
comes  forward  and  in  the  most  profound  and  authorita- 
tive manner  conducts  the  special  service.  It  is  impres- 
sive, even  though  the  gongs  and  drums  and  bells  tend 
to  dispel  not  only  evil  thoughts,  but  the  attentive  and 
worshipful  ones,  too.  Yet  the  sincerity  of  the  worship- 
ers is  undeniably  evident. 

The  religious  practices  of  Japan  cannot  be  said  to  be 


CLEAR  WATER  TEMPLE  267 

individualistic,  for  the  people  generally  cluster  in  family 
groups.  But  the  forms  differ  distinctly  from  Occidental 
worship  in  this  very  elasticity.  In  the  West,  going  to 
church  on  Sundays  or  holidays  is  a  mass  movement. 
You  feel  the  solidity  of  conscience,  a  binding  of  the 
whole  into  an  impenetrable  mass.  That  is  its  strength 
and  its  weakness,  for  one  knows  only  too  well  what 
hypocrisy  obtains  often  in  the  severest  profession  of 
religious  faith.  The  devotee  in  the  East,  however, 
on  the  surface  of  things,  is  the  loosest  co-devotee  of 
his  neighbor  to  be  found  anywhere.  You  frequent 
temple  after  temple,  and  at  all  hours  of  the  day  you  will 
find  visitors.  They  come  and  go  at  will  and  there  seems 
nothing  to  hold  them  together.  They  usually  pray  on 
the  outside  if  it  is  at  a  Shinto  shrine;  or,  even  if  upon 
the  mats  of  the  great  Buddhist  temples,  there  is  a  per- 
petual flow  of  worshipers,  a  movement  of  individuals 
(usually  in  groups)  which  seems  to  lack  cohesion.  That 
is  the  strength  and  weakness  of  Buddhism.  But  it 
seems  that  in  this  it  is  stronger  than  other  religions, 
because  more  elastic.  It  is  like  the  waters  of  the  world, 
which  may  be  parted,  broken  into,  or  undergo  evapora- 
tion, still  they  will  some  day  reunite.  Perhaps  it  is 
even  like  quicksilver,  which  draws  its  separated  particles 
together. 

Numerous  are  the  temples  which  guard  the  precincts 
of  classic  Japan.  Chion-in  and  Kyo-mizu-dera  (Clear 
Water  Temple)  stand  as  the  gateway  to  the  rising  sun; 
Nishi-  and  Higashi-Hongwanji  face  the  road  to  com- 
mercial and  modern  Japan;  Kinkakuji  and  Ginkakuji 
(Gold  and  Silver  Pavilions)  at  the  northeast  and  south- 
east corners  in  the  direction  of  the  continental  sources  of 
Japanese  civilization.  Yet  numerous  and  elaborate  as 
the  temples  are,  one  soon  wearies  of  wandering  from  one 
to  the  other,  feeling  content  to  inhale  the  spirit  of  Kyoto 
which  ever  and  ever  exhales  the  glory  of  their  artistry. 


268  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

One  marvels  at  the  artistic  genius  of  this  people. 
From  what  source  did  they  draw  such  inspiration? 
Though  all  are  more  or  less  alike,  still  each  temple  is 
unique  and  has  a  distinction  which  sets  it  out  from  the 
rest.  Chion-in  is  massive  simplicity;  Kyo-mizu-dera  is 
rich  in  a  most  virile  use  of  mountain  landscape;  the 
Hongwanji  temples  are  the  acme  of  material  luxury; 
while  the  Golden  Pavilion,  built  as  a  temple  of  personal 
joy,  is  the  consummation  of  wealthy  simplicity.  To 
attempt  to  make  special  reference  to  all  the  lesser  edi- 
fices would  be  to  imitate  a  guide-book;  but  one  can  go 
from  one  to  the  other  and  still  find  something  to  admire, 
something  to  marvel  at.  The  unassuming  structure 
harboring  the  San- ju-san -gen-do,  or  the  temple  contain- 
ing 33,333  images  of  Kwannon,  the  Goddess  of  Mercy, 
almost  electrifies  you  with  amazement.  It  reminds  you 
of  the  theosophist  who  said  that  he  often  sets  his  mind  on 
one  point,  thinks  of  that  and  that  only  without  reasoning, 
without  variation,  until  it  sometimes  seems  to  him  he 
will  go  mad  with  concentration.  Such  is  the  wonder  of 
this  hall  of  images.  All  in  gilt,  all  with  a  thousand 
hands,  all  with  the  same  position  and  the  same  expression 
—one  simply  clutches  at  his  reason  when  contemplating 
them.  In  the  darkened  chamber  into  which  they  re- 
cede, as  it  were,  stars  into  the  universe,  they  give  the 
impression  of  infinity  made  finite  as  nothing  else  in  art 
has  ever  done.  And  yet  when  examined  closely  one 
finds  that  individuality  even  here  has  found  expression; 
that,  whether  flawed  or  faultless,  each  bears  to  the  other 
a  relative  value — and  that  setting  standards  and  con- 
ceptions of  perfection  or  imperfection  is  the  greatest  of 
human  errors.  While  in  the  rear  sits  a  wood-carver 
deftly  making  new  hands — soft,  delicate,  and  human — 
for  this  undying  goddess  who  seems  to  be  wearing  them 
out  in  trying  to  teach  mankind  to  be  merciful. 

Kyo-mizu-dera  may  be  reached  from  two  different 


DOING  DELICIOUS   PENANCE  269 

directions.  Inasmuch  as  most  of  us  must  again  return 
to  the  humdrum  trivialities  of  life,  no  matter  to  what 
attractive  spots  we  may  venture,  the  ideal  way  is  to 
leave  the  world  by  the  path  behind  the  Miyako  Hotel 
and  lose  one's  way  along  the  numerous  paths  which  in- 
sinuate themselves  into  the  heart  of  the  hills.  If  you 
lose  your  way  completely,  what  matter  ?  You  are  within 
a  lovely  retreat,  and  there  will  be  none  to  disturb  the 
solitary  peace  so  easily  won.  But  instinct  will  lead  you 
in  the  right  direction.  Presently,  quite  unexpectedly, 
you  are  tracing  the  bed  of  a  stream  and  overlooking  a 
deep  little  valley  beset  with  temples,  pagodas,  and  tea- 
houses. It  is  Kyo-mizu-dera.  As  you  stand  at  the 
head  of  a  steep  set  of  stone  steps,  you  look  down  upon 
one  of  the  prettiest  and  yet  one  of  the  most  pathetic 
pictures  to  be  seen  in  Japan.  The  temple  proper  stands 
with  only  one  side  of  the  foundation  touching  the  moun- 
tain, the  rest  being  supported  by  innumerable  pillars. 
Immediately  beneath  you,  at  the  foot  of  the  steps,  is  a 
square,  concrete  pool  with  three  pairs  of  stones  for  the 
feet  of  penitents.  Here,  before  a  shrine  set  into  the 
ravine,  men  and  women  who  think  they  have  committed 
sins,  but  could  not  say  what  sin  is,  come  to  be  absolved. 
How  any  one  who  thus  confesses  he  does  not  know  how 
to  live  properly  can  be  expected  to  understand  the  nature 
of  transgression  is  a  problem  which  does  not  affect  the 
picture.  Here  at  all  times  of  the  year  men  and  women 
will  come  after  removing  their  clothes  in  a  little  shed 
and  donning  a  white  cotton  kimono,  and  stand  for  stated 
lengths  of  time  with  the  tiny  little  stream  of  water  from 
above  dropping  down  on  their  backs.  In  summer  the 
gods  are  cheated  of  their  allotment  of  suffering  mortality, 
and  a  ban  should  be  placed  upon  this  form  of  absolution. 
It  is  tempting  man  to  commit  sin  in  order  to  be  justified 
in  refreshing  one's  body  in  streams  such  as  this. 

But  while  the  Japanese  is  or  are  doing  penance,  little 


270  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

sparrows  are  quarreling  for  the  possession  of  eminent 
domain  on  the  shrine  recess  above  them.  The  wooden 
god  glares  in  frozen  impotence,  while  all  the  sacred 
mirror  can  do  is  to  mar  the  reflection  out  of  all  definition. 
The  goddess  at  the  right  has  placed  her  hands  together 
in  surprised  prayer;  the  fierce  prototype  of  power  at  her 
left  has  his  right  hand  under  his  left  shoulder,  gripping 
a  long  spear,  while  his  face  is  the  image  of  scorn  and 
indignation.  And  the  birds  quarrel  and  peck  away  at 
the  bread  set  before  these  dyspeptic  divines.  They 
chirp  and  flit  about,  perch  upon  the  floral  and  evergreen 
tributes,  or  on  the  candlesticks  and  glass  candle-cases. 
And  the  penitent  pilgrim  mocks  the  whole  procedure  by 
enjoying  overmuch  the  cool,  refreshing  shower,  eager  to 
prolong  rather  than  to  shorten  the  period  of  his  "ordeal." 

Kyo-mizu  is  the  protector  of  a  marvelous  image  of 
the  thousand-handed  goddess  of  Mercy,  Kwannon,  but 
out  of  mercy  she  is  protected  from  idle  gazing  by  being 
shown  but  once  in  thirty-three  years.  That  is  perhaps 
why  she  is  so  merciful. 

One  loses  one's  antipathy  toward  the  selfishness  of 
wealth  in  the  East  and  the  West  after  a  visit  to  the  great 
Hongwanji  temples.  That  so  much  of  the  best  that  man 
can  do  is  placed  at  the  disposal  of  come  who  will  seems 
to  me  the  most  exalted  form  of  democracy.  Yet  they 
are  not  museums.  They  have  their  purpose  and  fulfil 
it.  Some  day  all  that  is  worth  while  in  life  will  be  so 
arranged.  The  exclusiveness  of  private  possession  is  the 
limitation  of  art  and  a  restriction  on  inspiration. 

However  much  one  of  the  West  may  not  quite  appre- 
ciate the  details  which  enter  into  the  making  of  these 
two  vast  storehouses  of  Japanese  art,  they  leave  one  in 
studied  reflection.  One  is  relieved  when  the  priest- 
attendant  comes  from  behind  the  altar  and  quietly,  one 
by  one,  draws  the  gilded  paper  doors  across  these  virtues. 
Deep  within  the  shadowed  recesses  the  mystic  symbols 


IN  SUMMER  THE  GODS  ARE  CHEATED  OK  THEIR  ALLOTMENT  OF  SUFFERING 

MORTALITY 


THE  LIFE  OF  THE   NOMAD  PRIEST  IS  NOT  MERE  HISTORICAL  CONSCIOUSNESS, 
BUT   STERN    REALITY 


THEIR  SECRET  ESSENCE  271 

patiently  await  the  coming  of  a  great  revealer.  One  by 
one  they  have  sought  to  appease  the  hungry  insatiety 
of  man,  and  one  by  one  have  failed.  Massed  and  mar- 
shaled they  stand  as  the  great  conviction,  only  one  sees 
how  far  from  the  mark  both  the  spiritual  and  the 
scientific  so  very  often  hit.  The  scientist  makes  experi- 
ment after  experiment,  and  then  discovers  exactly  what 
he  had  not  been  looking  for;  and  the  artist  and  the 
individual  devotee  accumulate  symbols  and  signs,  and 
when  you  put  them  all  together  you  have  modeled  a 
vast  machine  for  the  control  of  man — but  not  for  his 
perfection.  No  system  of  religion  ever  really  wants  to 
make  man  perfect,  for  then  it  will  have  become  obsolete. 
That  is  why  religious  wars  occur,  because,  after  having 
raised  mankind  to  the  level  of  its  ideal,  the  organization 
refuses  to  step  aside.  The  massive  beauty  of  the  temple 
seems  to  contradict  its  secret  essence.  That  it  has 
architectural,  human  significance  in  itself  is  obvious. 
But  at  every  turn  one  is  conscious  of  a  telling  presence 
which  denies  the  outer  forms.  In  churches,  especially 
Catholic,  the  edifice  does  not  simply  symbolize  the 
spiritual;  it  is  actually  meant  to  be  that.  The  various 
artifices  do  not  so  much  lead  to  the  conceptions  of 
divinity  to  be  worshiped,  but  are  in  themselves  con- 
sidered divine.  It  is  the  house  of  the  Lord  and  every 
bit  of  furniture  is  by  that  much  the  Lord  Himself.  But 
with  these  temples,  the  apparent  absence  of  physical 
unity  annihilates  that  continuity  of  purpose  which  leads 
to  the  ever-recurring  spark  of  Buddhist  power.  It  has 
the  essence  of  wind  and  fire  in  its  make-up  rather  than 
bodily  unity. 

The  tremendous  wooden  pillars,  which  seem  to  have 
been  loved  into  soft  smoothness,  is  the  surface  rotundity, 
the  hundreds  of  soft,  oblong  mats  which  fit  so  snugly  into 
one  another,  the  rich  gilt  and  painted  carvings  held 
together  with  that  impulsive  outward  pressing  force 

18 


272  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

which  is  the  law  of  universal  matter — everything  seems 
to  spread  and  burst  outward,  rather  than  inward,  as  in 
western  cathedrals.  The  oratory  is  oblong,  but  faces 
the  altar  which  is  on  the  longer  side,  not  on  the  narrower, 
as  in  churches.  The  altar  is  the  full  length  of  the  ora- 
tory. Thus  the  effect  created  is  that  of  each  individual 
facing  something  directly  in  front  of  him,  rather  than 
all  facing  a  single  point.  The  religious  consequence 
must  therefore  be  more  individualistic;  each  man  to  his 
own  god  or  his  own  devil;  each  facing  his  own  problems. 
Still  Buddhism  has  not  lost  its  unity.  There  are  no 
more  sects  within  the  Buddhist  fold  than  there  are 
within  the  Christian  circle,  and  it  seems  that  the  former 
tends  toward  greater  inclusiveness  and  the  latter  toward 
exclusion.  Buddhism  has  here  in  Japan  alone  com- 
pletely absorbed  a  people  whose  indigenous  beliefs 
were  directly  and  concretely  more  opposed  to  it  than  is 
Christianity — that  is,  Shintoism.  And  Shintoism  is  the 
essence  of  centralization,  of  unification  round  a  single 
entity,  a  single  personality.  The  great  unifier  of 
Japanese  Buddhism  was  the  saint  Kobo  Daishi. 

Of  the  other  works  of  art  which  fill  these  gorgeous 
structures  to  their  tiles  little  need  here  be  said.  The 
screens  are  exquisite.  But  all  are  the  work  of  men. 
What  of  the  women?  In  literary  art,  Kyoto's  women 
stood  at  the  head  of  all  the  Orient.  The  Fielding  of 
Japan  was  a  woman.  But  the  heyday  of  feminism 
passed  with  the  coming  of  Chinese  Buddhism.  Since, 
its  suppression  has  been  complete.  Their  greatest  con- 
tribution was  their  long  black  tresses.  On  the  outside 
of  the  Higashi-Hongwanji,  along  an  open  corridor,  lead- 
ing from  wing  to  wing,  lies  a  coil  of  dark  rope,  like  a  giant 
beehive  about  four  feet  high.  That  was  the  gift  of 
women  to  the  construction  of  the  temple — the  hair  of 
which  the  Japanese  woman  is  so  justly  proud. 

Cut  off  from  the  clean  section  of  Kyoto  by  the  rough 


THIRSTS— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY         273 

intrusion  of  the  train  into  modern  Japan  stands  a  temple 
which  no  one  would  think  of  visiting  these  days — it  looks 
so  shabby.  On  the  2ist  of  each  month  a  festival  which 
is  more  like  a  fair  takes  place  in  honor  of  the  great 
saint,  Kobo  Daishi.  It  is  quite  unusual  in  its  setting, 
however.  Tall  pines  grace  the  yard.  Hundreds  of 
people  course  in  and  out,  buying  things  from  the  venders 
who  have  spread  their  wares  on  the  ground.  Many  of 
them  are  asleep.  The  sun  is  sultry,  casting  over  people 
and  things  a  spell  of  Oriental  drowsiness.  Some,  how- 
ever, are  quite  awake,  attracting  large  crowds.  A  man 
sells  a  new  concoction  which  he  elaborately  details  with 
a  torrent  of  explanation.  A  pan  is  full  of  ice-shavings. 
He  pours  a  thin  stream  of  condensed  milk  slowly  over  it, 
then  a  little  flavoring,  syrup,  eggs,  and  two  or  three  other 
liquids — and,  lo  and  behold!  a  drink  fit  for  monarch  or 
Tenno.  The  glassfuls  pass  out  and  the  coins  which 
come  in  litter  the  table.  A  big,  fat  man  under  an  um- 
brella buys  a  drink — two,  three — served  him  over  the 
heads  of  a  dozen  in  front  of  him,  (he  must  be  a  narikin). 
One  smiles,  hesitates,  but  also  takes  a  glass;  a  girl,  fat 
and  short,  with  perspiration  like  a  rash  upon  her  sore, 
overheated  face,  looks  on  sadly.  What  wouldn't  she  give 
for  a  glassful!  Old  women,  faint  with  heat,  stand  be- 
neath their  umbrellas.  At  another  stand,  a  trick-maker 
with  a  blind  eye  and  dislocated  jaw,  a  many-colored 
divided  skirt,  passes  up  and  down,  displaying  his  skill. 
At  another  place,  under  the  square  cloth  cover,  open  on 
one  side,  a  woman  calls  out  for  the  interested  to  listen. 
For  two  sen,  which  you  pay  on  leaving,  not  on  entering, 
you  see  a  man  with  arms  and  legs  atrophied,  or  shriveled, 
by  infantile  paralysis,  drawing  little  meaningless  pictures 
with  a  fude  (brush)  manipulated  with  his  head  and 
mouth.  And  thirty  little  children  stand  and  stare! 
All  round  the  temple  grounds  the  most  discarded,  useless 
things  are  on  display — tabi  (stocking-shoes)  stitched  and 


274  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

darned  after  having  been  thrown  away,  lie  for  sale. 
When  you  know  that  a  new  pair  would  cost  but  twenty 
sen,  the  poverty  of  the  country  is  told  at  a  glance.  And 
within  the  temples  priests  are  praying,  musicians 
playing  the  fifes  (like  Scotch  bagpipes) ;  people  sit  about 
indifferently;  others  pray  at  the  entrance  and  throw  in 
their  coppers.  And  all  this  in  a  temple  erected  by  or 
under  the  spiritual  or  physical  supervision  of  Kobo 
Daishi.  How  childish  he  would  feel  were  he  to  visit  the 
place  to-day! 

Nor  would  he  be  alone  in  this.  At  the  opposite  end 
of  Kyoto,  also  in  isolation,  stands  another  temple  known 
in  the  world  as  the  Golden  Pavilion.  This  section  is 
perhaps  the  loveliest  in  and  about  Kyoto,  wooded  pro- 
fusely, with  a  creek  running  along  a  sunken  ravine  set 
with  a  forest  of  bamboos.  Kinkakuji  itself  has  a  most 
ideal  situation  against  a  little  hill.  Its  garden  is  as  fine 
a  piece  of  artistic  arrangement  of  vast  possibilities  in 
miniature  as  could  be  imagined,  and  the  pavilion  on  the 
shore  of  the  lake  is  ideally  placed.  Nothing  is  out  of 
proportion.  Stones,  trees,  islands,  a  lake — all  are  small 
and  pretty,  yet  give  in  perspective  an  impression  of  large- 
ness in  reality.  One  partly  shuts  one's  eyes  and  sees 
immediately  a  real  lake  with  islands,  instead  of  a  small 
pond.  And  the  pavilion  stands  on  the  shore,  in  a  sense 
the  only  thing  somewhat  out  of  proportion.  For  it 
becomes  a  monstrous  building  when  seen  at  a  distance, 
though  on  the  spot  it  is  fitted  to  its  environment. 

Thought  of  in  its  historical  setting,  it  again  looms  up 
as  a  monstrous  project.  There  is  so  much  of  this  sort 
of  thing  in  Japan.  Everywhere  else  art  and  archi- 
tecture are  the  materialization  of  mass  ambition.  A 
cathedral  is  the  ideal  of  an  age,  of  generations;  and  so, 
too,  are  the  temples  of  Japan.  But  these  private  enter- 
prises, these  self -raised  mausoleums,  teach  so  much  of 
the  egoism  of  individuals  one  cannot  fully  enjoy  their 


PAYING  TRIBUTE  TO  KOREA  275 

intrinsic  value.  Clever  and  powerful  as  was  the  shogun 
Ashikaga  Yoshimitsu,  his  short-sightedness  in  this 
elaborate  display  of  power  portrays  his  weakness.  And 
every  Japanese  will  agree  and  join  in  anything  of  con- 
demnation I  might  say  of  him,  for  he  is  the  one  man  in 
the  country  who  ever  paid  tribute  to  a  foreign  state. 
It  was  he  who  reversed  the  Nipponese  attitude  toward 
Korea  and  for  ever  disgraced  himself  with  his  country- 
men. And  this  fact,  this  imperialistic  egoism,  is  recog- 
nized in  the  fact  that  his  golden  pavilion,  which  he  built 
for  his  personal  pleasure  and  which  he  plastered  with 
gold-leaf,  has  been  turned  over  to  the  Zen  sect  as  a 
temple.  In  this  building,  now  five  hundred  years  old, 
he  bargained  with  art,  as  in  politics  he  bargained  with  a 
foreign  nation.  It  is  this  essential  weakness  which 
creeps  into  the  actions  of  all  men  who  obtain  power,  the 
full  usefulness  of  which  they  do  not  understand  or 
which  the  jealousy  of  others  does  not  permit  them  to 
make  full  use  of. 

To-day  the  Golden  Pavilion  is  a  retreat  from  the  very 
influences  which  made  for  its  creation.  And  the  way 
thither  leads  through  poverty,  scattered  industry,  the 
clatter  of  shuttles  from  the  latticed  chambers  of  the 
silk-weavers — and  an  ungilded  humanity  which  lives 
on  these  small  glories  of  power  wrested  from  its  very 
self. 

"Across  the  way,"  at  the  northern  corner  of  Kyoto, 
stands  the  Ginkakuji,  or  the  Silver  Pavilion,  a  modest 
imitation  of  the  same  thing.  Between  is  the  Mikado's 
former  palace — a  model  of  simplicity  and  austere  reserve. 
Much  as  our  friends,  the  Japanese,  would  have  us  believe 
that  this  imperial  modesty  was  voluntary,  history  sadly 
disproves  it.  For  these  very  pavilions  were  the  upper 
and  the  nether  millstones  between  which  the  poor,  dis- 
traught Emperor  was  crushed  into  submission  to  the  will 
of  the  usurper-general.  For  the  peace  and  happiness  of 


276  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Japan  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  stupid  craving  after 
military  power  is  near  an  end. 

Immediately  behind  this  silver  and  gold  decadence 
stands  Hiei-san,  as  rich,  as  lofty,  as  green  as  in  the  days 
of  this  hectic  past.  Within  his  altitudinous  precincts 
are  but  a  few  ghostlike  remnants  of  the  glory  it  once 
possessed.  Buddhist  priests,  teaching  mankind,  forgot 
to  practise,  and,  understanding  life,  forgot  to  live  it 
according  to  that  understanding.  They  sought  to  step 
where  Ashikagas  feared  to  tread  and  found  themselves 
before  Nobunaga,  the  exterminator.  Periodically  they 
swooped  down  upon  Kyoto,  leaving  havoc  and  misery 
behind  them.  And  Nobunaga  taught  the  Buddhists  to 
know  their  place,  and  they  haven't  forgiven  him  yet. 
I  wonder  what  secret  prayers  the  bonzes  even  this  day 
utter  for  the  torture  of  his  soul.  But  to-day  Hiei-san 
is  quiet.  The  clash  of  arms  can  be  heard  no  more; 
barely  a  sound  of  even  Buddhist  resignation  rises.  So 
tame  has  the  world  become  that  even  foreign  mission- 
aries have  been  making  the  peak  their  camping-ground 
these  forty  years. 

In  the  eyes  of  the  unconverted  natives  how  crude, 
cold,  and  unbeautiful  must  seem  the  Christian  churches 
— they  who  have  never  seen  a  great  cathedral.  Yet 
with  mere  shacks  the  missionaries  think  to  supplant 
Buddhism.  This  struck  me  so  forcefully  when  on 
Hiei-san.  For  forty  years  missionaries  have  been  camp- 
ing on  this  mountain  regularly  during  the  summer 
months,  yet  not  a  permanent  structure  with  even  the 
vaguest  suggestion  of  beauty  is  to  be  found  there. 
Just  wooden  floors  and  wooden  roofs,  single  boards 
raised  to  protect  tents  and  tent-flaps.  Everything  in 
the  cheapest,  most  dilapidated  condition.  How  it 
must  make  the  pilgrims  who  come  to  visit  the  old 
temples  scoff.  How  offensive  it  must  be  in  the  eyes  of 
the  form-loving  Japanese.  All  they  have  is  a  little 


LAKE  BIWA  277 

"meeting-house"  which  looks  worse  than  an  open  coun- 
try moving-picture  stable,  having  the  virtue  neither  of 
complete  openness  nor  of  inclosure. 

In  contrast  to  this  ungainliness  is  the  beauty  in  age 
of  the  numerous  temples  which  stud  the  mountain 
fastnesses.  Broad  stone  steps,  though  adding  nothing 
to  the  beauty  of  the  place,  are  to  the  region  what  genera- 
tions are  to  tradition. 

Crossing  the  mountain  and  descending,  on  the  Lake 
Biwa  side,  through  thickly  wooded  slopes  of  pines  and 
cryptomerias  and  the  most  self-effacing  bamboo,  we 
come  to  where  Biwa  (Omi-ko)  lies  stretching  northward. 
It  is  completely  surrounded  by  irregular  mountains. 
It  is  one  of  those  places  which  was  born  great  and  did 
not  have  greatness  thrust  upon  it.  It  is  the  Lake 
George  of  Japan,  but  infinitely  more  delicate,  even  as 
the  former  is  infinitely  more  vigorous  and  verdant.  It 
is  somewhere  between  Lake  Como  and  George,  only  the 
muddy  marshes  along  the  northwest  shore  recall  one  to 
the  memory  of  its  alleged  origin.  Once  Fuji  erupted, 
and  Omi  was  born.  This  is  a  negative  sort  of  an  expla- 
nation and  ill  becomes  the  beauty  of  the  water.  He 
who  would  gaze  long  enough  across  Lake  Biwa  would, 
I  am  sure,  be  inspired  with  more  purposeful  romancing. 
And  to  me,  one  night,  resting  on  its  shore  at  the  village 
of  Otsu,  it  became  the  prospect  of  a  greater  assurance. 
Deep  within  the  darkness  which  lay  above  it  shone  the 
lights  of  swerving  sampans.  My  days  along  the  edge 
of  Lake  George  came  back  to  me  with  saddening  realism. 
But  that  night  a  hope  hung  between  life  and  death. 
And  Omi-ko  said,  "Life." 

Here  at  Otsu  is  one  of  the  loveliest  temples  in  all 
Japan — Mii-dera.  It  has  much  of  the  real  quality  of 
Nikko  without  the  latter's  lavish  tidiness,  and  the  charm 
of  Ohara  without  its  neglect.  Cryptomerias  and  maples 
grove  the  temple  grounds  and  are  walled  in  by  broad 


278  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

avenues  of  moss-covered  stones,  and  bridged  with  just 
such  a  curved  stone  bridge  as  is  universally  associated 
with  Japan.  One  is  quite  bewildered  by  the  profusion 
of  vistas  and  retreats  which  here  go  a-begging.  Yet 
what  peace  and  tranquillity!  It  is  somewhat  of  a  "Jean 
Christophe"  of  a  temple:  not  too  far  away  from  life, 
yet  not  disturbed  by  its  changing  fruitlessness. 

Here  at  Mii-dera,  far  away  at  a  somewhat  inacces- 
sible distance,  is  the  head  priest's  private  residence. 
Beside  it  is  a  small  graveyard.  And  here  lie  the  remains 
of  Ernest  Fenollosa,  the  American  patron  of  Japan- 
ese art.  The  tombstone  is  of  a  simple  Buddhist  type, 
inscribed  in  Chinese  characters  with  the  names  of  four 
American  friends,  one  of  whom  is  Arthur  Wesley  Dow, 
the  American  painter.  The  tomb  is  like  that  over 
Hideyoshi's  grave — the  cube  (earth)  under  the  sphere 
(water)  over  which  is  the  pagoda-roofed  symbol  for  fire, 
a  spheroid  for  air,  topped  by  another  with  a  point  to 
it  for  ether.  Here  at  Homyo-in  the  priest  received 
me,  pleased  to  have  a  foreigner  witness  the  respect  and 
reverence  with  which  Fenollosa  is  regarded.  Every 
autumn  when  the  maple-leaves  have  reached  their 
greatest  splendor,  the  priest  holds  a  service  at  his  grave. 
Reiyen  Naobayashi,  the  old  priest,  promised  to  let  me 
know  what  day  would  that  fall  be  chosen.  He  did, 
but  to  the  effect  that  that  year  (1918)  no  service  would 
be  held,  on  account  of  the  influenza  epidemic  then  raging. 
The  head  priest  is  a  quiet,  worldly  sort  of  person, 
who  shuts  his  eyes  as  though  at  prayer  every  time  he 
speaks  to  you.  But  he  was  not  so  Buddhified  that  he 
did  not  show  some  irritation  when  a  boy  did  not  bring 
and  handle  the  painted  karakami  as  quickly  as  he  wanted 
him  to.  The  temple  possesses  some  excellent  works  of 
art,  among  them  being  paintings  of  the  great  Japanese 
woman  novelist,  Murasaki  Shikibu. 

A  few  miles  away  from  Otsu  in  the  other  direction, 


ONE  OF  EIGHT   BEAUTIES  279 

yet  still  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Biwa,  stands  Ishiyama- 
dera,  a  very  ancient  temple  to  which  this  selfsame 
Murasaki  Shikibu  is  said  to  have  retired  for  a  fortnight 
during  which  she  wrote  the  Genji  Monogatori,  one  of 
the  greatest  Japanese  classics. 

But  Ishiyama  has  a  glory  all  its  own.  Hidden  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Setagawa,  which  flows  out  of  Lake  Biwa, 
it  is  a  secret  to  be  discovered  only  in  the  blaze  of  autumn. 
Were  there  not  "Eight  Beauties  of  Omi"  in  and  about 
Lake  Biwa,  but  Ishiyama  alone,  fame  could  not  have 
found  a  place  more  worthy.  I  have  not  seen  it  by  moon- 
light, as  devotees  urge.  It  was  enough  to  see  it  at  sun- 
set in  autumn,  swathed  in  delicate  tints.  One  loses  the 
sense  of  either  the  passing  or  coming  of  the  year.  The 
short  avenue  which  you  approach  leads  to  a  simple  old 
temple-gate,  arched  with  maple-trees  whose  tender  leaves 
were  dipped  in  tender  hues.  One  is  shy  of  words.  A 
wrong  word  might  shake  these  floating  leaves.  The 
very  use  of  the  world  "cold"  might  add  that  little  chill 
which  will  ripen  the  leaves  for  their  graves.  I  mistrust 
the  word  "wind,"  lest  that  disturbing  sound  drive  them 
"like  ghosts  before  an  enchanter  fleeing." 

Black  rocks  stand  in  patient  usefulness — few  and 
clannish.  Here  there  are  three  structures — a  temple  on 
a  small  ledge  to  the  left,  a  bell-tower  on  the  ledge  to  the 
right  specked  with  sunset-amber  and  maple  shadows, 
and  a  third  in  the  portion  rising  toward  the  summit. 
That  is  the  main  temple,  sealed,  and  concealing  "the 
real  object  of  worship — a  small  image  six  inches  in 
height."  But  one  would  hardly  know  that  from  the 
way  in  which  the  sunlight  dances  on  the  outer  walls. 
This  solar  familiarity  banishes  all  thought  of  worship  of 
the  superstition  within,  but  leaves  you  worshiping  none 
the  less,  leaves  you,  a  small  image  not  six  feet  yourself, 
insignificant  in  the  presence  of  such  natural  caprice.  And 
you  then  look  up  into  an  incomparable  bower  of  maple. 


28o  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

One  feels  the  hand  of  a  woman  in  all  this.  For  while 
Hideyoshi  was  making  the  Empire  of  Japan  with 
firmness,  there  was  one  beside  him  dreaming.  And 
when  she  became  his  widow  and  was  released  from 
being  a  delicacy  against  a  drastic  background,  she, 
Yodogimi,  took  to  making  on  her  own  account.  And  she 
remade  Ishiyama. 

Arashiyama  is  at  the  opposite  corner  of  the  district. 
In  spring  and  autumn  it  is  the  attraction  of  Japan — its 
maple-leaves  and  cherry-blossoms  alternating  and  vying 
with  each  other  in  the  crowds  they  draw.  The  rapids  of 
the  Hozugawa,  but  a  few  miles  up  so  noisy  with  self- 
importance  and  so  treacherous,  are  at  Arashiyama  placid 
and  exhausted,  and  follow  the  course  laid  out  for  them 
as  though  it  didn't  matter  any  more. 

The  humanity  which  pretends  to  revel  in  these  beau- 
ties is  just  the  same.  Without  organization,  without 
enforced  unity,  man  makes  a  mess  of  things.  In  freedom 
he  does  not  seem  to  know  how  to  be  humanity.  I  have 
yet  to  see  a  picnic  or  an  outing  in  which  there  is  any 
artistic  impulse.  This  is  true  of  Japan  no  less  than  of 
any  other  country.  The  Japanese  have  no  stronger 
racial  genius  than  have  we.  Left  to  themselves  their 
"art"  takes  the  form  of  wild  shrieking,  haphazard 
dancing,  and  good-natured  drunkenness.  This  is  in- 
teresting, but  only  as  the  rapids  are — for  a  moment. 
When  Japanese  dance  they  become  very  primitive  and 
remind  one  of  the  Maories.  But  they  know  no  more 
what  it  is  to  be  really  free  and  unrestrained,  have  no 
greater  appreciation  of  wild  nature,  than  any  of  us. 
To  come  out  into  the  open  to  them  as  to  us  is  merely  to 
shout,  to  scrap,  to  eat,  and  to  get  drunk.  So  we  will 
return  to  Kyoto  and  see  what  the  more  constrained, 
more  formed  and  organized  of  its  people  think  and  do. 


XVII 

GION    MATSURI    PAGEANT 

HE,  complaint  of  the  rationalist  against  the 
disappearance  of  the  old  forms  of  life  is 
not  an  undervaluation  of  the  ever-arising 
new.  He  who  lives  at  the  transition 
stage  watches  with  regret  the  gradual 
weakening  of  the  old  and  cannot  as  yet  see  the  slowly 
accumulating  wonder  of  the  new.  That  is  why  one 
hears  so  much  about  the  fast-disappearing  Old  Japan. 
Those,  however,  who  have  given  sympathetic  attention 
to  the  real  Japan  may,  no  matter  how  much  they  dis- 
parage the  new,  have  unlimited  faith  in  its  renaissance. 
To  see  how  quickly  the  Old  Japan  is  degenerating  one 
must  attend  one  of  the  great  festivals.  None  is  more 
impressive  than  that  of  the  largest  Shinto  shrine  in 
Kyoto  known  as  the  Gion  Matsuri.  It  begins  on  the 
1 7th  of  July  and  ends  on  the  24th.  Materially,  nothing 
shows  how  incompatible  the  past  and  present  are,  for 
in  order  to  allow  the  great  hoko  and  yama  (ponderous 
chariots)  to  pass  through  the  street  the  electric  trolley 
wires  must  be  cut.  Twenty  or  forty  men  pull  the  mas- 
sive carts  by  long  two-inch  ropes.  The  wheels  are 
seven  feet  in  diameter,  with  bodies  fully  ten  feet  high; 
hoko  or  halberds  are  gracefully  mounted  on  the  temple- 
shaped  roofs.  The  bodies  of  these  cars  are  hung  with 
embroideries  and  tapestries  some  of  them  of  the  most 
artistic  and  exquisite  workmanship.  On  others,  how- 


282  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

ever,  cheap  foreign  rugs  have  taken  the  place  of  native 
hangings.  The  old  and  the  new,  the  false  and  the 
true,  overlap  in  this  day  of  uncertain  inclinations. 

Within  the  cars  and  on  the  driver  seats  are  numbers  of 
men  and  boys,  some  chanting  and  ringing  harsh  bells. 
The  men  in  the  front  dance  fantastic  fan-dances. 

There  are  twenty-two  yama  listed,  and  five  hoko,  but 
in  these  days  the  entire  number  is  not  drawn.  The 
procession  lasts  three  hours  and  takes  a  special  route 
across  the  city.  It  is  said  to  have  originated  back  in 
876  when  a  great  plague  swept  over  Kyoto,  and  priests 
sought  to  propitiate  the  gods  by  this  means. 

In  the  midst  of  the  rush  for  modernism  which  has 
swept  over  Japan  this  persistence  of  an  ancient  form  is 
admirable.  Men  know  that  the  doctor  expels  plague 
better  than  these  symbols;  men  see  the  introduction 
of  new  hangings,  and  watch  paid  coolies  pulling  these 
cars  instead  of  zealous  worshipers.  The  crowds  gather 
by  the  thousands.  Nothing  in  their  behavior  would 
indicate  that  a  procession  or  a  fire-drill  had  been  ar- 
ranged. Emotionally,  things  fall  flat,  but  pictorially 
they  are  superb. 

Though  the  iyth  is  the  more  spectacular  day  of  the 
festival,  it  is  not  the  most  impressive.  The  people  are 
merely  spectators.  On  the  eve  of  the  festival  all  Kyoto 
is  in  the  process  of  preparation.  Great  lanterns  are 
hung  in  front  of  each  house.  The  front  room,  generally 
the  store,  is  thrown  wide  open  and  every  possible  vestige 
of  trade  is  removed,  except  where  poverty  obtains.  In 
place  of  trinkets,  trash,  and  necessaries,  which  always 
litter  the  business  world,  screens  of  the  finest  quality  and 
art  are  placed  along  the  walls.  It  was  certainly  one  of 
the  most  wonderful  experiences  in  my  life.  Upon  the 
streets  strolled  these  clean  Japanese  in  their  summer 
kimonos,  the  essence  of  good  cheer  and  satisfaction. 

The  social  spirit  is  delightful.     Everybody's  home  is 


ART  TRIUMPHANT  283 

opened  to  all  who  care  to  look.  Phonographs  screech 
their  canned  music  out  into  the  dull-lighted  night,  men 
squat  before  their  heavy  Go  (checkers)  blocks,  tables, 
and  chess — a  more  sober,  happy  spirit  of  ease  and  con- 
tent not  to  be  found  anywhere.  As  a  touch  of  modern- 
ism, manufactured  rugs  lay  over  the  soft  straw-stuffed 
mats.  At  one  place  half  a  dozen  little  girls  from  six  to 
eight  years  of  age  romped  about.  Their  laughter  and 
ease  were  infectious.  They  played  a  game  of  hide-and- 
seek,  appearing  and  disappearing  within  the  folds  of  the 
screens.  Their  gorgeously  colored  kimonos  accentu- 
ated their  physical  differences  from  foreign  children, 
helping  to  make  them  appear  more  fairy  than  real.  A 
crowd  of  us  stood  watching  them,  but  they  were  utterly 
unconscious  of  us.  All  the  while  at  least  twenty  men 
sat  upon  the  mats,  playing  such  games  as  with  us 
demand  a  room  absolutely  silent.  Yet  they  were  not 
at  all  disturbed  by  the  childish  laughter.  Women, 
however,  were  not  seen  much,  even  on  such  an  occasion 
retreating  from  the  public  gaze. 

Wandering  along  one  street,  I  took  note  of  the  sub- 
jects painted  on  the  screens,  to  see  what  interests  these 
people  most.  One  screen  represented  the  sixteen  dis- 
ciples of  Buddha,  each  obtaining  immortality  by  some 
special  use  of  a  living  creature — bird,  ox,  turtle,  horse, 
dragon,  etc.  One  disciple  was  astride  a  frog,  another,  a 
flying  bull,  a  third,  a  giraffe,  tiger,  heron,  sheep,  book, 
dove — in  order.  There  were  three  screens  illustrating 
fighting  samurai,  one  each  of  an  architectural  nature, 
horse-racing,  the  No,  children ;  two  screens  of  wise  men ; 
two  comic,  cubistic;  two  religious;  five  of  courtiers  in 
procession;  nine  plain  gold  screens;  twenty  of  fish  and 
lions  and  other  animals;  and  thirty-five  of  nature 
(clouds,  plant  life,  etc.).  It  will  thus  be  seen  that 
nature  and  animals  appeal  to  the  Japanese  most.  I 
noticed  that  wherever  a  screen  was  painted  after  the 


284  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

modern  style  in  oils  the  expressions  on  the  faces  of  sub- 
jects, if  women,  were  invariably  sad,  dissatisfied,  longing 
— as  our  women  are  always  represented.  This  is  cer- 
tainly more  foreign  to  the  Japanese  woman's  face  than 
is  even  the  artist's  technique,  and  shows  the  tendency 
to  be  imitative. 

At  certain  corners  or  stations  stood  the  sacred  cars, 
all  overhung  with  Japanese  lanterns.  Planks  had  been 
thrown  across  from  the  tops  of  the  cars  to  the  houses  in 
which  the  treasures  were  temporarily  stored. 

The  screens  are  heirlooms  and  are  known  to  belong  to 
the  families  displaying  them.  Should  one  fail  to  exhibit 
any  of  them  it  would  indicate  stress  of  circumstances, 
loss  of  wealth  and  prestige.  The  clan  spirit  is  so  strong 
that  if  one  man  is  in  need  in  one  district,  the  rest  will 
come  to  his  assistance,  and  it  is  next  to  impossible  for 
an  outsider,  even  at  this  late  date,  to  purchase  property 
in  a  new  district.  Consequently  Kyoto  is  very  much 
scattered.  Take  Nishimura's  silk-store — the  largest  in 
the  city.  It  is  on  a  little  side-street  in  anything  but  a 
favorable  business  block.  But  the  family  has  lived 
there  for  generations;  so  they  cannot  or  do  not  care  to 
go  elsewhere.  And  foreigners  are  told  to  go  there  to 
witness  the  procession  of  the  24th,  for  in  front  of  this 
store  the  palanquin-bearers  go  through  special  cere- 
monies. Each  district  has  its  car  and  districts  vie 
with  each  other  in  elaborateness. 

The  replacing  of  the  sacred  palanquins  in  their  shrines 
on  the  night  of  the  24th  is  a  charming  sigjit,  full  of 
voluptuous  spirit  as  well  as  esoteric  meaning.  Forty  or 
fifty  youths  prance  backward  and  forward,  raising  the 
ponderous  gilt-and-lacquer  car  high  over  their  heads  and 
lowering  it  to  their  shoulders,  calling  aloud,  "Ya  so, 
yo  so,  ya  so,"  etc.,  in  most  primitive  fashion.  They 
sway  and  swing  the  burden  (which  is  indeed  heavy)  and 
act  as  though  the  spirit  were  willing,  but  the  body  reluc- 


SACRED  CARS  285 

tant  to  advance,  and  when  they  reach  the  bridge  they 
swing  round  and  go  back  again. 

The  effect  is  hypnotic.  One  sways  with  them  as 
though  actually  carrying  their  burden.  It  is  like  being 
on  a  rough  sea,  only  what  one  is  forced  to  give  up  here 
is  his  unbalanced  self-restraint.  Yet  the  mass  of 
Japanese  stands  by,  staring — unaffected  outsiders. 

The  climax  in  Japanese  art  is  reached  in  these  great 
festivals.  They  seem  to  be  the  fountain-head  of  Ori- 
ental artistic  impulse.  From  the  clear,  restrained 
impulsiveness  which  makes  Japanese  brush-works  so 
vigorous  and  so  wonderful  to  the  temples  which  contain 
them  is  a  gradual  ascent  which  finally  culminates  in 
these  popular  pageants. 


XVIII 

MEDIEVAL    JAPAN — TOKYO 

CHOSE  to  head  this  chapter  "Medieval 
Japan"  because  Tokyo  (or  Yedo,  as  it  was 
called)  came  into  existence  with  the  dropping 
of  the  curtain  over  Japan's  world  destiny. 
It  was  the  Taiko  Hideyoshi  who  suggested  the 
place  as  a  fit  one  for  his  right-hand  general,  leyasu,  and 
all  leyasu  could  do  was  to  accept  it.  And  in  a  trice, 
over  three  hundred  years  ago,  out  of  a  desolate  waste 
he  made  a  city. 

Tokyo  is  in  such  a  formative  state  as  yet  as  to  appear 
scattered.  You  have  to  travel  long  distances  in  small, 
dirty,  crowded,  creeping  tramcars,  cars  so  small  that  a 
passenger  standing  behind  a  motorman  prevents  him 
from  using  the  antiquated  hand-brake  discarded  in 
New  York  ten  years  ago.  But  her  railroad  station  is 
modern  in  every  way,  adjoins  an  excellent  hotel,  and 
seems  ultra-American  in  its  details. 

Kobe  is  impossible  on  a  rainy  day,  but  it  is  not  the 
peer  of  Tokyo  in  that  respect.  I  had  come  to  Tokyo 
specially  to  see  the  cherry-blossoms,  but  Miss  Cherry 
Blossom  doesn't  show  herself  to  advantage  when  it  rains. 
Her  stems  are  not  the  most  attractive  part  of  her 
anatomy,  nor  do  they  look  well  bespattered  with  mud. 
She  does  not,  on  that  account,  disdain  to  show  them. 
Shades  of  Anthony  Com  stock!  If  he  wants  to  sec 
maidenly,  manly,  matronly,  and  muddy  legs  bare  up  to 
the  knees,  let  him  visit  Tokyo  on  a  rainy  holiday.  Legs 


THK    I'AST    AM)    I'RKSKNT    ARK    INCOMI'ATIIil.K :      NOW,  WHF.N    TMKSK    I'LAGL'IC 
LXPtLSlON  CHARIOTS  PASS,  THK  TROI.I.KV  WIRES  Ml'ST  HE  CUT 


FORTY  MEN  PULL  THESE  MASSIVE  CARTS  BY  TWO-INCH  ROPES  ONE  HUNDRED 
AND  FIFTY  FFET  LONG 


ESCORTS,  PULLERS,  DRIVERS,  CHANTING  AND  RINGING  HARSH  BELLS,  DANCE 
FANTASTIC   FAN-DANCES 


LEGS  287 

of  all  kinds,  some  pretty  solid  and  some  pretty  wobbly, 
but  nevertheless  legs,  human  legs,  and  no  Boston  author- 
ities to  prohibit  their  immodest  procession  and  promis- 
cuous mingling  in  public.  If  I  am  unable  to  find  my 
way  over  these  notes  on  Tokyo  it  will  be  that  I  couldn't 
see  the  population  for  its  legs.  Not  that  they  attracted 
me  so  much,  for  they  are  not  over-shapely,  but  they  were 
in  the  way.  I  had  to  move  along  most  cautiously,  de- 
termined to  carry  away  as  little  of  the  slush  as 
possible,  and  there  were  all  these  legs  not  only  blocking 
the  way,  but  leaving  no  footprints,  either — only  marks 
like  the  perforations  in  a  roll  of  music  for  a  piano- 
player. 

What  an  unsanitary  state  of  affairs !  With  a  moat  and 
walls  round  an  imperial  palace  large  enough  and  ex- 
tensive enough  to  have  paved  half  of  the  city,  I  saw 
not  a  paved  street  in  the  capital. 

The  1 5th  of  April  is  a  holiday  for  the  celebration  of  the 
cherry-blossoms.  Nay,  welcoming  and  bidding  farewell 
at  the  same  time.  Yesterday  they  were  still  blazing 
forth ;  to-morrow,  nay,  even  now,  they  are  falling  to  the 
ground.  Ten  days  later  they  will  have  passed  away 
with  the  thousands  of  others  celebrated  through  the 
centuries. 

It  was  a  dull  day,  but  the  sun,  though  dazed,  found 
joyous  reflection  on  the  light  -  pink  blossoms.  The 
ground  was  already  strewn  with  them.  It  strained  my 
eyes.  It  seemed  like  an  artificial  snow  scene,  a  winter 
from  which  all  the  sting  of  cold  had  been  removed. 

And  how  do  the  Japanese  celebrate?  In  undefined 
desire.  Crowds,  but  not  just  plain  crowds.  Most  of 
them  in  crazy  costumes  and  with  funny  faces.  Some 
went  so  far  in  their  enthusiasm  as  to  clip  designs  in  their 
hair — stars,  rhomboids,  squares,  standing  out  black 
against  a  bare  scalp.  Procession  after  procession  of 
large,  capacious  boats  pushed  by  sendo  with  long  bamboo 

19 


288  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

poles  were  littered  with  noisy,  gluttonous  human  beings. 
Some  of  them,  spurred  on  by  the  sake,  went  into  calis- 
thenic  paroxysms  simulating  savage  dances.  One  was 
prostrate  on  his  back.  One  old  man  became  unmen- 
tionably  vulgar  before  his  women  companions.  And 
thousands  of  others  looked  on  from  the  shore  and  the 
bridges.  Noise  of  drums,  singing  in  hoarse,  discordant 
songs,  confusion  of  color,  dirty  in  appearance — that  is 
what  celebrating  in  Japan  comes  to  when  it  isn't  cere- 
monializcd.  I  dare  say  it  is  good  for  man  to  relieve 
himself  if  this  sort  of  thing  is  what  is  in  him. 

In  contrast  stood  the  imperial  palace,  presenting  a 
scene  as  wonderfully  opposite  to  that  as  anything  this 
world  can  possibly  afford.  It  had  begun  to  rain.  A 
hundred-and-fifty-foot  moat  separates  the  Emperor's 
world  from  ours ;  a  wall  of  stone  about  thirty  feet  thick 
and  twenty  high  above  it  barricades  him  against  us. 
His  world  is  all  fixed  and  certain;  ours,  what  we  can 
make  of  it.  To  us  who  have  not,  the  advantages  from 
the  achievement  in  one  lifetime  of  such  power  and 
exclusion  are  enlarged  to  unimaginable  proportions; 
to  him,  never  having  known  other  or  lesser  degrees,  his 
lot  may  seem  poor  indeed.  I  wonder  whom  he  envies 
now  in  the  year  1919,  with  the  Czar  and  the  Kaiser  to 
reflect  upon. 

There  are  degrees  of  difference.  When  I  approached 
the  immobile  figure  of  the  policeman  at  the  crossroads, 
caped  and  hooded  from  the  wind  and  rain,  and  looked 
into  his  deep,  sullen,  suspicious  eyes,  I  felt  myself 
a  king  in  freedom  and  wondered  whether  that  lonely 
statue-like  slave  didn't  envy  me  as  much  as  he  envied 
his  Tenno. 

The  inclined  road  reaches  the  ramparts  of  another 
moat  which  runs  between  two  similarly  constructed 
stone  walls,  the  inner  one  of  which  harbors  the  imperial 
palace.  Two  simple  bridges  span  it.  Guards  stand  in 


THE  RICE  RIOTS  289 

rigid  attention.  I  stepped  upon  the  stone  wall  and 
rested  on  the  iron  railing,  but  was  instantly  ordered  off 
by  a  guard.  My  profane  hands  were  not  even  to  touch 
the  imperial  railing.  What  about  the  ground  beneath 
my  feet  ?  Then  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  gaze 
across  the  yawning  moat. 

Strange  thoughts  came  to  me.  Love  of  the  peace,  the 
quiet,  and  the  beauty  of  the  place  beyond  made  me 
approve  of  it.  A  feeling  of  actual  foreignness  came  into 
me  such  as  had  never  disturbed  me  before — a.  foreignness 
which  is  not  natural  but  forced,  which  even  the  wonder- 
ing subjects,  gazing  wide-eyed  at  their  Tenno's  dwelling- 
place,  must  experience.  And  they  were  his. 

Great  silence  brooded  over  all.  I  hoped  some  for- 
mality would  swing  wide  those  broad  gates  and  let 
forth  the  Emperor  on  some  affair  of  state.  Nothing  but 
some  law  or  order  could  have  accomplished  so  great  a 
thing.  Emperors  and  peers  do  not  act  haphazardly  any 
more  than  do  volcanoes.  Geysers  may  be  soaped  into 
action,  but  not  volcanoes  and  emperors.  But  no  life 
showed  itself  from  within.  Even  the  trees  maintained 
a  marked  decorum  and  stateliness  in  pose. 

But  the  serenity  was  not  to  endure  unbroken.  The 
next  year  a  ripple  in  the  moats  was  felt  and  a  tremor 
shook  the  palace. 

We  were  at  dinner  at  the  Imperial  Hotel  when  a 
gentleman  came  past  and  told  us  we  were  missing  the 
excitement  outside.  It  was  the  i4th  of  August,  1918, 
and  the  rice  riots,  which  swept  over  the  country  a  few 
days  previously,  had  set  in  a  second  time — or  had  not 
been  suppressed.  In  front  of  the  hotel  hundreds  of 
sullen,  voiceless  hangers-on  had  gathered.  The  hotel 
employees  warned  us  not  to  go  out,  but  we  made  our 
way  to  the  gate.  I  ventured  into  the  crowds  alone,  and 
was  scrutinized  sullenly,  though  nothing  happened. 
Under  the  arch  of  the  railway  bridge  many  other  Jap- 


290  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

anese  hung  about,  while  before  the  bridge,  leading  to 
the  Ginza,  stood  a  cordon  of  white-suited  policemen. 
They  would  not  let  me  pass,  though  their  attitude  was 
most  friendly,  and  they  answered  my  questions  politely 
and  sympathetically.  A  little  later  a  number  of  win- 
dows near  the  hotel  were  smashed.  The  rioters  had 
moved  out  of  this  district,  the  police  permitted  us  to  go 
through,  and  we  wandered  along  the  darkened  Ginza — 
all  wooden  shutters  having  been  put  on. 

We  turned  in  the  direction  of  Hibiya  Park.  Just  as 
we  arrived  at  the  corner,  a  dozen  motor-cars  full  of 
policemen  in  their  white  uniforms  tore  past  us  at  great 
speed.  We  made  our  way  into  the  park  and  seated  our- 
selves on  a  knoll  above  the  lake,  with  the  imperial  palace 
beyond.  From  this  place  we  could  also  see  over  into 
the  street.  Crowds  were  rushing  hither  and  thither, 
shouting — and  there  were  the  hangers-on,  silent  and 
sullen.  Suddenly  the  sound  of  the  bugle  came  from 
the  direction  of  the  palace,  followed  by  the  tread  of 
soldiers;  then  a  lull.  The  cries  of  the  crowd  rose  again 
in  an  inconsequential  protest,  and  then  all  was  quiet. 
We  attempted  to  return  to  the  hotel,  which  stands  right 
in  line  with  the  park  entrance.  The  policemen  per- 
mitted us  to  go,  but  stopped  the  Japanese.  They  made 
one  exception — doubtless  a  detective,  for  he  was  tall, 
slightly  foreign  in  manner,  and  seemed  to  hang  on  our 
trail.  On  several  occasions  I  noticed  we  were  being 
watched.  When  we  came  up  to  where  the  soldiers  stood 
they  refused  to  let  us  pass,  notwithstanding  that  I 
explained  that  we  were  going  to  the  Imperial  Hotel,  half 
a  block  away.  We  had  to  turn  and  pass  for  three  blocks 
through  the  surging  multitude. 

It  was  an  impressive  scene.  The  Japanese  policemen 
were  excited,  but  each  carried  the  tamest  of  objects 
imaginable — a  paper  lantern.  There  was  nothing  tame 
about  the  atmosphere,  however.  It  was  electric  enough 


THREE  NYMPHS  291 

and  had  none  of  the  ordinary  aspects  of  a  food  riot.  It 
was  tinged  with  political  significance,  which  will  be 
touched  upon  in  a  succeeding  chapter. 

Tokyo  did  not  suffer  so  severely  from  the  riots  as  did 
Kobe,  Kyoto,  and  Nagoya.  Tokyo,  with  all  its  fame, 
is  another  of  the  mistakes  of  medieval  Japan.  The  time 
may  yet  come — though  I  have  never  heard  it  even 
hinted  at  and  the  railroads  make  it  seem  improbable — 
for  Kyoto  to  come  into  its  own  again.  Kyoto  lies 
nearer  the  important  center  of  industrial  Japan.  Tokyo 
will  eventually  be  off  the  "macadamized  roads"  of  the 
coming  Japan. 

The  last  time  I  was  in  Tokyo  it  was  also  raining. 
Going  to  one  foreign  hotel  near  the  Ueno  Station  adver- 
tised in  the  guide-book,  I  found  it  closed,  and,  the 
prospect  of  the  next  being  no  more  assuring,  I  accepted 
the  advice  of  the  rickshaw-man  and  had  myself  pulled 
to  the  Yamashiro-ya  Hotel.  It  faces  the  Ueno  Station, 
a  foreign  brick  three-story  building  recently  erected. 
The  clerk  told  me  there  was  no  room,  but  when  I  assured 
him  I  would  put  up  with  a  Japanese  room,  he  assented. 
Immediately  a  girl  came  along  and  took  my  suitcases. 
When  I  took  them  away  from  her  she  said  in  Japan- 
ese, "Seiyojin  taiJien  shinsetsu"  ("Foreigners  are  very 
kind-hearted").  Which  shows  that,  though  Japanese 
women  put  up  with  the  imposition  of  their  selfish  males, 
they  do  so  not  without  being  conscious  of  the  better 
treatment  accorded  their  western  sisters. 

I  was  taken  to  the  top  story  and  given  a  corner  room, 
neat,  costly-looking,  modern,  but  Japanese  in  every 
detail.  And  here  it  struck  me  that  this  is  the  secret  of 
all  westernization  of  the  Orient.  Though  it  was  an 
extremely  up-to-date  building,  still  in  all  essentials  it 
was  as  inconvenient  as  one  in  the  olden  days.  When  I 
asked  for  a  bath  I  was  led  down  the  three  sets  of  stairs 
to  the  cellar  where  were  the  communal  bath  and  lava- 


292  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

tories.  Imagine  having  to  go  three  stories  to  wash 
yourself  and  washing  in  common  with  all  the  other 
strangers  in  the  hotel.  It  struck  me  that  socially  the 
Japanese  hotel  is  a  negative  affair.  Washing,  gargling, 
and  clearing  of  throats  are  done  in  common,  but  eating 
and  every  other  function  by  us  regarded  as  social  is  done 
in  private.  Of  course,  eating  should  not  be  a  social 
affair,  either,  for  that  matter,  but  the  contrast  is  inter- 
esting. When  I  was  ushered  into  the  bath  by  the 
maid  she  called  aloud  into  the  room  with  the  pool  that 
a  guest  had  come,  and  forthwith  a  tiny  little  woman 
came  out  with  a  towel  in  her  hand — and  not  a  stitch  of 
clothes  about  her.  Nudity  has  its  attractions  when 
slightly  concealed,  but  when  no  secrecy  obtains  it  has 
the  opposite  effect.  She  was  small,  she  was  brown. 
But  she  hadn't  even  a  blush  on  her  face.  Why  should 
she?  None  of  the  people  she  cares  anything  about  con- 
siders it  wrong!  I  made  my  way  into  the  bath.  Two 
men  were  there,  but  left  shortly.  I  wasn't  alone  five 
minutes  when  in  came  a  dainty  damsel  with  as  much  on 
her  as  I  myself  had.  She  was  soon  followed  by  another, 
and  the  two  seemed  to  support  each  other  in  virtue. 
They  entered  the  pool  and  huddled  in  a  corner.  An 
old  man  entered  and  also  stepped  right  into  the  water. 
The  male  attendant  chatted  with  the  ladies,  and  never 
a  sign  of  confusion  or  of  things  amiss  disturbed  the 
atmosphere.  It  was  the  first  experience  of  the  kind  I 
had  had  in  all  my  stay  in  Japan.  One  is  here  inclined 
to  agree  with  the  Japanese  that  they  don't  need  western 
moral  restrictions  because  they  are  naturally  moral, 
though  this  is  not  an  absolute  truth.  And  the  story  is 
told  by  those  whose  veracity  is  not  to  be  doubted  that 
when  first  the  edict  went  forth  that  no  one  was  to  go 
into  the  sea  at  the  beach  without  a  bathing-suit  on,  all 
obeyed  the  order,  but  all  took  off  their  suits  on  the  sand 
after  they  came  out  of  the  water. 


NIKKO  THE  INCOMPARABLE  293 

Nikko  is  the  embodiment  in  stone  of  the  will  to  live. 
All  the  other  Oriental  splendors  are  of  life  unconcerned 
about  death.  Built  of  wood,  they  not  only  succumb  to 
decay,  but  to  the  ravages  of  fire.  At  Nikko,  besides  the 
tall  cryptomerias,  the  architectural  conceptions  are 
certainly  more  lavish  than  any  to  be  found  in  Japan. 

But  that  which  is  Nikko  in  more  definite  terms  of 
human  aspiration  is  the  tomb  of  leyasu.  In  no  mau- 
soleum is  there  so  much  conscious  striving  to  approx- 
imate immortality  in  the  use  of  stone  as  at  this  tomb. 
Almost  the  first  thought  which  came  to  me  as  I  stepped 
upon  one  of  these  slabs  leading  up  the  hill  was  of  leyasu's 
vandalism  at  the  shrine  of  Hideyoshi.  It  hurts  one's 
sense  of  manliness  and  pride  to  think  that  so  big  a  man 
as  leyasu  was  unable  to  tolerate  an  ascendancy  he  had 
been  unable  to  excel.  It  was  without  doubt  this  feeling 
that  Hideyoshi,  a  peasant's  son,  had  outreached  his  own 
inherited  prestige — which  drove  leyasu  to  such  acts  of 
ruthless  destruction.  It  bears  the  stamp  of  conviction, 
of  power,  of  confidence,  but  the  desire  to  outstrip 
another  lurks  in  every  corner  of  this  wonderful  tomb. 

Buddhist  architecture,  as  stated  elsewhere,  seems 
scattered.  If  one  could  only  see  the  entirety  thrown 
together  in  some  single  work  which  could  hold  you  for 
the  time  in  its  grip  as  does  a  cathedral.  But  come  to  a 
Buddhist  or  Shinto  place  of  holiness  and  you  are  pur- 
sued with  the  fear  that  you  have  missed  the  best  of  it 
by  not  seeing  the  next  temple.  Nikko,  however, 
though  things  are  still  somewhat  scattered,  is  fortunate 
enough  to  possess  a  unity,  a  binding  force,  a  consummate 
splendor. 

Certainly  no  place  in  Japan  is  so  rich  in  hidden  streams, 
covering  forests,  and  rugged  mountain  as  is  Nikko. 
You  realize  the  futility  of  ever  being  able  to  enjoy  it  to 
the  full,  yet  feel  the  delicious  sense  of  growth  in  contact, 
the  restful  retirement.  Of  course,  it  is  a  question  as  to 


294  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

whether  you  will  see  the  pagan  or  the  human  elements 
within  or  behind  it. 

The  writer  is  in  the  position  of  the  silk  embroiderer, 
who  worked  out  a  picture  of  Nikko  for  foreign  consump- 
tion. Upon  the  sheet  six  feet  by  five  will  be  seen  the 
gilded  gateway  to  the  temple,  the  pagoda,  the  sacred 
bridge,  the  streams,  and  all  that  vast  amassing  of  ma- 
terials, all  out  of  perspective  and  out  of  placing.  But 
the  "artist"  felt  that  unless  he  put  them  all  in  the 
purchaser  might  forget  one  of  the  holy  of  holies. 

Elaborate  as  these  temples  are  (having  cost  $10,000,000 
at  a  time  when  a  dollar  was  really  three)  one  leaves  with 
a  feeling  of  surfeit.  They  seem  overdone.  Splendid 
they  are  beyond  compare;  but  they  lack  softness  and 
simplicity.  Were  it  not  for  the  giant  cryptomerias  the 
whole  would  be  garish  and  unpleasant.  True,  it  is  a 
fit  monument  to  the  kind  of  peace  great  leyasu  affected. 
None  of  us  can  criticize,  for  at  that  time  it  was  the  only 
kind  of  peace  possible. 

But  the  tomb  ?  That  is  different.  It  is  reached  by  a 
steep  set  of  steps  lined  with  magnificent  cryptomerias. 
One  ascends  slowly,  listening  to  the  hush  which  hangs 
within  the  shadows.  The  way  is  moss-covered;  the  hill 
steep;  the  peak  set  with  the  gold-bronze  tomb.  There  is 
that  about  tombs  which  is  resentful  of  attention.  One 
wishes  that  the  entire  place  were  sanctified  by  that 
greatest  of  tributes — neglect.  To  keep  things  fresh  and 
gilded  as  though  born  that  day  is  to  rob  a  tomb  of  that 
which  it  is  meant  to  indicate — its  age.  And  leyasu's 
tomb  looks  as  though  it  had  been  built  yesterday.  One 
loses  that  historical  perspective  which  gives  to  death 
its  place  in  life.  It  is  like  the  withered  old  woman  who 
paints  and  rouges  and  dresses  like  a  girl.  But  leyasu's 
tomb  is  commanding  of  reverence  and  respect,  because 
nothing  seems  so  strikingly  set  in  its  will  to  live  as  the 
spirit  of  leyasu  about  his  tomb. 


XIX 

A    RING    ROUND    THE    SUN 

rN  this  modern  age  one  can  throw  a  ring  round 
the  heart  of  the  Rising  Sun  in  the  matter  of 
a  few  days.  It  may  be  an  engagement,  but 
not  a  wedding-ring.  Here  and  there  is  a 
little  luster,  but  most  is  plain  and  ordinary. 
The  gem  in  the  setting,  however,  is  certainly  Amano- 
Hashidate,  the  Ladder  of  Heaven.  It  lies  beyond  the 
bay  of  Maizuru,  on  the  Japan  Sea.  In  these  days  the 
Ladder  of  Heaven  is  being  guarded  by  monster  battle- 
ships which,  though  they  do  not  prevent  you  from 
seeing,  prohibit  your  taking  away  any  perfect  images  of 
the  way  to  gloryland.  Here,  too,  one  must  not  look  very 
closely  at  things  within  seven  thousand  yards  of  that 
which  is  interesting,  and  when  you  want  to  see,  not  climb, 
the  Jacobean  ladder  you  must  perch  yourself  on  top  of 
a  hill  and  look  between  your  legs.  The  long  land-spit 
which  stretches  out  into  the  bay  then  does  indeed  reach 
heaven. 

What  is  heaven,  however,  compared  with  meeting  a 
good  man?  He  was  the  scndo  on  the  little  boat  who 
took  me  out  over  the  waters  along  the  length  of  the 
"ladder."  He  was  old,  still  alert,  and  led  me  back  over 
the  ladder  of  days  which  he  had  climbed  from  his  boy- 
hood. The  heaven  of  his  youth  still  hovered  in  his  mind, 
a  youth  astir  with  war  and  revolution,  the  days  when  first 
the  hated  foreigner  disturbed  the  even  tenor  of  Japanese 


296  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

seclusion.  He  was  a  professional  wrestler  then,  but 
now  he  ferries  his  little  boat  upon  this  bay,  making  it 
easier  for  the  indolent  to  glide  toward  heaven  instead  of 
climbing  the  narrow  "ladder." 

Returning  to  Kyoto,  I  purchased  a  ticket  for  Arima, 
a  small  hot-springs  bathing-resort  back  of  Kobe.  But 
when  I  got  to  Aiyabe  I  decided  to  go  straight  on  to 
Kyoto.  The  ticket  from  Maizuru  to  Arima  was  some- 
thing like  twenty-five  sen  more  than  from  Maizuru  to 
Kyoto.  It  took  half  a  dozen  clerks  at  the  station  to 
figure  this  out  and  finally  give  me  what  I  regarded  as 
my  receipt  indicating  the  amount  due  me.  When  I 
reached  Kyoto  station  I  was  again  bombarded  by  de- 
mands, and  finally  left  the  station  with  both  the  ticket 
and  the  sense  of  having  been  despoiled  of  twelve  and  a 
half  cents.  But  they  didn't  care. 

With  Kyoto  as  the  starting-point  the  train  went  north 
toward  Tsuruga,  the  port  of  embarkation  for  Vladi- 
vostok. It  is  a  little  town  of  eighteen  thousand  inhab- 
itants, a  scattered  and  soulless  village.  What  can  you 
expect  of  a  port  famous  for  its  cod  and  seaweed?  The 
future  of  Tsuruga  is,  however,  dependent  upon  Japan's 
future  in  Siberia,  its  proximity  to  the  continent  giving 
it  an  advantage  over  every  other  port  in  Japan. 

From  Tsuruga,  for  the  next  hundred  miles,  there  is  no 
seaweed  and  the  cod  do  not  fly  in  the  air.  The  entire 
distance  can  be  described  in  a  few  words,  the  word  tunnel 
coming  in  at  the  most  unexpected  moments.  Oc- 
casionally glimpses  of  the  sea  between  sharp  ravines,  or 
mountain  barriers  still  packed  with  snow,  though  it  is 
late  in  spring,  somewhat  vary  the  scenes.  One  is  aware 
of  the  rigor  of  the  winters  here  by  signs  no  one  needs  to 
explain.  The  roofing  of  houses  is  unique.  To  keep  the 
shingles  from  being  blown  away  by  the  sea-winds,  stones 
are  laid  in  rows  quite  close  to  one  another.  The  plains 
which  lie  back  of  the  coast  toward  the  mountains  about 


COD  AND  SEA-WEED  297 

Takaoka  are  as  unique  in  Japan  as  Japan  is  in  the  world. 
Accustomed  as  one  soon  becomes,  in  this  congested  land, 
to  see  the  country  literally  linked  with  crowded  villages, 
the  sight  of  plains  studded  with  homes  set  apart  from 
one  another  is  a  great  relief.  One  would  think  that,  this 
region  being  an  extremely  cold  one,  the  houses  would 
have  been  built  closer  together,  but  instead  they  stand 
several  acres  apart,  each  encircled  with  a  small  growth 
of  spear-shaped  pines.  This  makes  of  the  entire  plain 
one  scattered,  picturesque  village.  Farther  north,  the 
train  runs  along  the  edge  of  the  sea.  Villages  are  here 
more  ordinary  and  more  ordinary  things  are  villages. 
Fishermen,  unable  to  use  their  junks  during  the  rigors 
of  winter,  haul  them  upon  the  shore  into  huts  of  straw, 
tenantless  structures  breasting  the  winds. 

Historically,  the  district  is  not  without  its  interest, 
though,  in  a  country  which  for  centuries  had  been  rent 
by  intestine  strife,  it  becomes  wearisome  to  trace  places 
famous  for  historic  crimes.  From  this  region  came  the 
last  resistance  to  the  rule  of  Hideyoshi,  the  great  gen- 
eral; and  here  echo  the  sympathies  for  Yoshitsune,  one 
of  the  greatest  heroes  in  Japan,  who  fled  thither  to  escape 
the  jealous  ingratitude  of  his  brother,  Yoritomo,  genera- 
tions earlier.  Here  at  Fukui,  after  an  idle  peace  of  three 
hundred  years,  during  which  all  development  was  re- 
garded with  dire  suspicion,  came  one  of  the  first  calls  for 
the  outer  world.  One  of  the  first  men  to  sacrifice  his 
life  for  the  sake  of  foreign  trade  came  from  this  northern 
shoreland.  The  circumstances  are  interesting.  The 
actions  of  this  man  had  come  to  the  ears  of  the  shogun. 
Fearing  lest  the  truth  that  this  wealthy  man  had  trans- 
gressed the  shogun's  orders  become  known  and  others  as 
sympathetic  with  opening  the  country  to  foreign  trade 
become  involved,  he  was  charged  falsely  with  having 
poisoned  the  stream  which  caused  an  epidemic.  Thus 
was  the  iconoclast  removed. 


298  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

To-day  the  country  is  known  throughout  the  world  as 
a  source  of  silk,  habutae  (a  glossy  silk),  lacquer  ware, 
kutani  pottery,  makie  lacquer,  bronze  wares,  and  even 
patent-medicine  supplies. 

There  is  now  a  through  train  from  Tsuruga  to  Tokyo, 
by  way  of  Naoetsu  and  Karuizawa.  From  Naoetsu 
the  train  dips  to  the  southeast,  slowly  ascending  a  valley 
the  southern  side  of  which  is  flanked  by  a  range  of  moun- 
tains. These  were  still  heavily  clad  with  snow  which 
lay  far  down  the  slopes.  Even  upon  the  fields  about  us 
thick  patches  of  snow  lay  melting  slowly  in  the  bright 
sun.  It  was  warm  enough  to  remain  on  the  platform 
without  an  overcoat.  Passing  through  Takada,  I  was 
surprised  by  the  ponderous  projections  from  the  houses 
out  over  the  streets.  These  were  necessary,  for  during 
winter  the  fall  of  snow  is  so  heavy  that  without  them 
passage  would  be  impossible. 

The  region,  though  well  cultivated  where  more  or  less 
level,  is,  in  the  light  of  other  places  in  Japan,  extremely 
desolate.  Considering  further  how  crowded  these  islands 
are,  the  uncultivated  mountain  slopes  seem  in  contrast 
even  more  barren  than  they  really  are.  They  have  few 
trees  upon  them,  with  only  here  and  there  a  cluster, 
within  which  lurks  a  shrine  to  Heaven  knows  whom. 
One  simply  becomes  disgusted  with  the  flood  of  literature 
which  attributes  world  fame  to  every  rock  and  stream 
and  mountain.  I  had  thus  made  a  semicircle  round  the 
heart  of  Japan  of  close  on  to  five  hundred  miles  under 
by  no  means  favorable  conditions,  without  seeing  any- 
thing worth  going  five  miles  to  see. 

Karuizawa,  the  summer  resort  of  foreign  missionaries 
and  wealthy  Japanese,  is  high  tableland  with  little 
variation.  Mount  Asama  was  then  unusually  active. 
A  cloud  of  white  fume  hovered  about  the  obstructing 
mountain  peak,  while  a  stream  of  dark-brown  ash  floated 
down  the  slope  toward  the  east.  Then  we  began  entering 


TRAIN  COMFORTS  299 

and  emerging  from  tunnels— and  night  overtook  us 
before  we  reached  Tokyo. 

Within  their  private  homes  I  am  sure  few  people  are 
as  careful  and  orderly  as  the  Japanese,  but  on  the  trains 
and  in  public  places  their  absolute  carelessness  and  unti- 
diness are  unbearable.  Banana-peels  are  thrown  upon 
the  floor,  egg-shells,  tobacco — everything  unedible  finds 
its  way  into  the  aisles.  Then  comes  the  overcrowding. 
For  over  an  hour  on  the  Limited  Express  from  Tokyo  to 
Kobe  there  wasn't  a  seat  to  be  had.  Not  that  there 
wasn't  room  enough,  but  that  Japanese,  unaccustomed  to 
sitting  on  chairs,  double  their  legs  under  them  or  stretch 
out  full  length  upon  the  long  side-seats  of  the  car. 
There  wasn't  a  sleeper  to  be  got  for  days.  A  Kobe 
Japanese  gentleman  of  my  acquaintance  was  on  the 
train  with  his  two  children.  He  was  compelled  to  spread 
a  blanket  on  the  floor  of  the  platform  for  the  kiddies. 
Japanese  are  great  travelers.  They  simply  move  in 
swarms,  and,  go  where  one  will,  this  herding  is  unavoid- 
able. While  the  masses  are  crowded  beyond  endurance, 
at  Tokyo  and  Kyoto  there  are  special  sections  of  the 
station  reserved  for  the  imperial  household  which  are 
never  opened,  nor  is  vulgar  foot  permitted  to  tread  upon 
them.  As  one  foreigner  aptly  put  it,  "In  Japan  there  is 
no  false  modesty,  but  a  great  deal  of  false  dignity." 

Mothers  sit  nursing  their  sturdy  offspring.  One 
Japanese  woman,  just  returned  from  America,  and  in 
foreign  clothes,  actually  forced  the  breast  upon  an 
irritable  youngster  in  trousers  and  shoes.  He  wiggled 
and  protested,  and  she  handled  him  as  though  he  were 
a  sack  of  oats,  but  finally  she  won  out  and  stifled  his 
screaming  with  a  mouthful  of  breast.  Another  woman 
nursed  her  prodigal  youngster  every  other  minute, 
serving,  between  courses,  whole  bananas  and  Japanese 
tea.  It  seems  that  the  Japanese  mother  is  patient 
under  such  circumstances  largely  because  her  person- 


300  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

ality  has  been  suppressed  or  was  never  developed.  A 
western  woman  is  therefore  naturally  more  easily 
irritated  by  the  whims  of  her  children. 

Things  which  irritate  a  foreigner  in  Japan  do  not  seem 
to  trouble  the  native  in  the  least.  There  are  things  innu- 
merable to  try  your  temper  in  the  East.  Japan  is  like  a 
secret  society  which  puts  a  proposed  member  through  an 
absurd  and  trying  initiation  before  it  permits  him  to  enjoy 
any  of  its  esoteric  advantages.  Japanese  are  everywhere 
putting  little  things  in  your  way.  It  may  be  only  a  few  sen 
or  it  may  be  a  smile.  A  Japanese  smile  prevents  you  from 
knowing  what  is  really  going  on  in  the  mind  behind  it. 

You  order  your  horse  for  the  road  to  the  foot  of  Fuji. 
You  allow  three  hours  in  which  to  saddle  it.  It  is  there 
half  an  hour  late.  You  find  that  it  is  a  balky  horse  and 
must  turn  it  back,  but  when  you  ask  for  a  refund  the 
dealer  counter-attacks  with  a  request  for  a  tip  for  the 
boy.  The  "guide,"  who  is  urged  upon  you  for  the  as- 
cent of  the  sacred  mountain,  does  not  hesitate  to  induce 
you  not  to  go  the  full  way  for  which  he  has  been  ordered 
by  "advising"  against  it,  but  when  returning  the  same 
way  you  went  you  ask  for  a  refund,  the  agent  throws  in 
the  word  "holy"  somehow  and  refuses  to  give  it.  You 
appeal  to  the  Tourist  Bureau,  but  the  bureau  does  not 
include  that  phase  of  helpfulness  in  its  general  run  of 
business.  You  order  your  lunch  made  up  for  the  top 
of  the  mountain  at  a  hotel  with  a  big  sign  declaring 
that  it  caters  to  foreign  travelers.  There  is  no  conveni- 
ence suitable  to  one's  tastes,  and  finally  when  you  reach 
the  summit  you  discover  that  the  sandwiches  have  been 
buttered  with  an  abominable  grease,  and  are  compelled 
to  cast  them  over  into  the  crater.  It  takes  three  or  four 
intruders  successively  to  discuss  the  simple  details  of  the 
ascent,  which,  if  properly  handled,  would  have  been  ar- 
ranged in  a  moment  elsewhere.  They  keep  coming 
back  every  five  minutes,  each  with  a  new  tale  to  tell. 


A   BROKEN  LINK  301 

And  long  after  you  have  really  settled  the  problems  one 
returns  for  a  final  answer  which  you  have  given  him  a 
number  of  times  before. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  have  taken  a  bath,  used  a  room 
for  an  hour  and  a  half,  had  Japanese  tea  and  cakes  at 
one  little  hotel,  and  then  sat  and  chatted  with  the  whole 
crew  of  servants  for  two  hours  more — but  when  I  asked 
for  my  bill  I  was  told  there  would  be  no  charge.  The 
extreme  rarity  of  such  experiences,  however,  makes 
them  worthy  of  mention. 

By  the  time  I  left  Tokyo  and  visited  Kamakura,  with 
its  great  bronze  image  of  Buddha,  the  loveliest  work  of 
art  in  Japan,  and  had  myself  driven  across  country  in  a 
four-wheeled  hansom — a  rare  sight  in  Japan — and  got 
on  my  train  bound  for  Nagoya,  I  was  so  weary  and  dis- 
gusted with  accommodations  and  crowding  that  I  felt 
I  had  seen  enough  of  the  heart  of  modern  Japan.  In- 
stead of  arriving  at  Nagoya,  with  its  wonderful  old 
castle-fortress,  early  in  the  morning,  as  the  Tourist 
Bureau  had  advised  me  I  would,  we  moved  in  at  mid- 
night. I  was  too  weary  to  make  a  change  and  stayed 
right  on  all  the  way  to  Kobe,  planning  to  visit  the 
fountain-head  of  Shintoism — Yamada  Ise — another  time. 

In  the  morning  there  was  no  water  in  the  washroom 
of  the  first-class  coach,  and  no  towels,  no  dining-car,  and 
no  privacy.  Added  to  this,  five  Japanese  sat  all  through 
the  night  drinking  whisky  by  the  tumblerful,  and 
third-class  passengers,  for  whom  there  was  no  room  in 
the  coaches,  stood  upon  the  first-class  platform,  peeping 
in  upon  the  foreigners  through  the  unfrosted  figures  in 
the  frosted  pane  in  the  door.  I  vowed  I  had  had  enough 
traveling  in  Japan.  But  the  restless  spirit  is  not  so 
easily  subdued,  and,  willy-nilly,  the  wanderer  sets  on  his 
way  again.  There  are  heights  still  unconquered.  Fuji 
being  the  symbol  of  Japan,  one  is  never  at  rest  till  its 
meaning  is  understood. 


XX 

FUJI — THE     ATTAINABLE 

rEISHA  do  not  dazzle  stray  passengers  at 
stations  like  Numazu  at  five  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  Japan  is  then  sleepy,  damp, 
and  silent.  Only  the  tireless  river  stretches 
along  and  scratches  its  back  against  the 
stone  embankments  or  plays  round  the  pillars  of  the 
bridge.  A  woman,  kimono  down  to  her  waist,  may  be 
washing  clothes  in  the  stream.  A  man  of  about  forty 
and  his  sturdy  wife  may  be  carrying  their  household 
effects  from  their  home  to  a  boat  without  exchanging  a 
word  as  they  pass  each  other.  These  are  human 
currents. 

But  what  am  I  doing  at  Numazu  at  that  hour?  I 
have  been  rushing  all  night  with  the  current  of  commerce 
determined  to  get  to  Fujiyama.  In  order  to  do  that,  it 
being  now  "off  the  beaten  tracks  of  Japan,"  I  had  to  get 
off  at  Numazu.  So  fast  is  the  rush  of  business  these 
days  in  Nippon  that  trains  have  no  time  for  such  places 
as  Mount  Fuji.  We  dreamers  and  pilgrims  seem  but 
driftwood  which  sometimes  finds  a  convenient  pillar  to 
catch  hold  of.  And  Numazu  is  that  pillar. 

Once  before  I  had  been  torn  past  O  Fuji  and  deposited 
in  Tokyo.  On  my  return,  I  again  missed  my  "grip." 
This  time  I  conquered.  Once  firm  at  Numazu,  it  was 
nothing  to  reach  Gotemba,  a  village  at  the  foot  of  the 
mountain  with  more  worshipers  treading  its  arduous 
heights  than  even  that  from  which  the  great  sermon  was 


READY  FOR  THE  ASCENT  OF  FUJI 


THE  SI.OI'E  IS  STEEP,  BUT  SHE  MUST  GET  THERE  ERE  SHE  DIES 


NIGHT  AT  GOTEMBA  303 

delivered.  Fuji,  Fujiyama,  Fuji  San,  O  Fuji  of  poetry, 
the  Fuji  pictures  of  which  fairly  litter  the  walls  (where 
there  are  walls)  of  Japan,  Fuji  of  winter  snows,  Fuji  of 
many  shrines,  Fuji  of  Dai  Nippon.  And  it  is  Fuji  which 
has  called  you  to  Japan,  it  is  Fuji  which  keeps  you  there 
if  you  have  not  seen  it,  and  it  is  Fuji  which  finally  gets 
you.  Then  you  rest — but  just  as  you  did  when  mother 
told  you  that  "just  one  more"  fairy-story  before  you 
fell  asleep. 

The  day  is  stormy,  in  spite  of  assurance  from  every 
one  about  Gotemba  that  the  weather  will  be  fine.  Black, 
heavy  clouds  completely  screen  the  pyramid  of  Fuji 
and  peals  of  thunder  roll  across  a  quarter  of  the  universe. 
Still  people  insist  it  is  safe  to  start.  Finally  the  post- 
office  clerk  telephones  up  to  the  summit,  still  concealed, 
and  is  told  that  no  ascent  must  under  any  circumstances 
be  undertaken  this  day.  And  we  prepare  for  a  night  at 
the  inn. 

It  is  11.30  P.M.,  and  in  spite  of  the  sad,  stormy  wind 
which  is  driving  the  clouds  to  huddle  near  the  earth,  the 
blind  massageur  makes  his  way  through  the  one  main 
and  few  minor  streets  of  Gotemba,  over  and  over  again. 
There  is  a  sad  appeal  in  the  two  lone  notes  coming  from 
his  tin  flute.  And  there  is  a  sad  weariness  in  the  vigorous 
wind  which  howls  through  the  cracks  in  the  wooden 
sliding  shutters  or  rattles  the  loose  paper  windows. 

Long  before  morning  comes  you  are  wakened  by  a 
rattling  of  tongues  such  as  was  never  heard  since  Babel. 
Some  pre-morning  train  has  arrived  with  pilgrims  and 
the  various  hotelkeepers  are  trying  to  lure  them  in. 
The  noise  at  a  circus,  the  calls  of  the  side-show  men, 
is  a  phenomenon  distinct  from  this;  it  forms  as  it  were 
a  pyramid  of  sound  based  on  general  confusion.  But 
here,  wakened  from  sleep  into  a  night  but  three-quarters 
gone,  with  general  silence  round  about,  these  voices 

contain  an  element  of  self-confidence  as  though  there 
20 


3o4  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

was  no  need  of  strain.     So  they  rattle  along  at  a  low 
key,  the  only  sound  in  a  somnolent  world. 

By  noon  we  are  off,  having  been  delayed  three  and 
a  half  hours,  waiting  for  our  horses  to  take  us  to  the 
first  station.  The  main  part  of  this  eight-mile  ride  is  in 
the  open;  then  you  arrive  at  a  bit  of  wooded  tableland, 
the  ground  of  which  is  softly  bedded  with  scoria.  This 
is,  as  it  were,  the  instep  of  the  foot  of  great  Fujiyama. 
Emerging  from  the  forest,  you  come  to  a  gradual  slope 
of  cinder-land  dull  with  lifelessness.  Impressions  here 
are  somewhat  blurred  by  the  fact  of  newness  and  the 
sudden  reversion  to  wildness  on  the  part  of  one  of  our 
horses.  He  has  perhaps  learned  the  trick.  The  ascent 
is  no  joy  to  him,  hence  why  should  he  take  to  it  without 
protest  ?  We  had  reached  the  first  intermediate  station 
and  had  dismounted  for  rest.  He  balked  at  being 
remounted,  and  my  companion  decided  to  walk  with  me, 
and  the  horse  was  sent  back. 

The  "guide,"  who  pants  and  spits  and  sweats  and 
trudges  on  under  the  five-pound  weight  you  have  placed 
upon  his  shoulders,  is  an  amusing  little  thing.  You 
wonder  how  one  whose  "profession"  is  climbing  Fuji 
can  have  learned  so  little  about  walking  and  about 
breathing  and  so  much  about  overcharging. 

Two  hours  pass.  You  push  aside  the  curtain  of  trees 
and  breathe  the  first  cool  draught  of  mountain  sweetness. 
It  is  four  o'clock.  The  heavens  are  gray,  the  earth 
serene.  The  clouds  above  are  coming  down  below. 
The  very  trees  are  spun  about  in  webs  of  mist.  Lost 
cloudlets  move  slowly  in  and  out  as  though  cautiously 
seeking  a  safe  place  for  the  night,  and  the  higher  we  go 
the  heavier  things  become.  The  trees  are  now  below  us, 
and  we  have  reached  the  rotted  lava  and  have  come  to 
Fuji's  own. 

Every  step  is  a  thrust  which  sends  this  old  earth  of 
ours  farther  and  farther  into  the  syrtis  of  space.  Con- 


THE  NAKED  GOAL  305 

tentment  ends  where  the  forest  ends;  beyond  is  the 
naked  goal.  One  seems  to  be  walking  up  into  infinity. 
Nothing  but  the  gray  telephone  poles  are  seen  of  human 
makeshift.  Huts  or  caves  built  of  lava  clinkers  will  be 
our  only  protection,  but  from  beneath  they  cannot  be 
distinguished  from  the  reddish-brown  dullness  of  the 
mountain.  The  rifts  of  clouds  are  now  deep  below  us 
and  have  taken  upon  themselves  the  burden  of  Fuji's 
shadow,  holding  it  up  as  princes  hold  the  trailing  robes 
of  their  emperor.  The  earth  wheels  slowly  round, 
throwing  its  own  great  shadow  over  that  of  Fuji. 

We  zigzag  our  way  upward  over  the  brown  ashes 
which  crunch  beneath  our  feet.  A  light  is  pointed  out 
to  us  as  the  third  station,  as  the  fourth,  the  fifth,  but 
every  time  there  is  a  half-way  station  or  two  between. 
And  the  brown  ash  becomes  darker,  but  the  crunching 
under  our  feet  continues. 

The  sun  is  gone,  and  yet  the  sunlight  lingers  on  the 
cloud-reefs  round  the  world.  The  night  born  of  little 
shadows  weds  with  the  wind,  while  yet  the  sunlight 
lingers  yonder  on  the  rim  of  space.  It  is  now  but  a 
simple  streak  of  color  without  substance.  It  does  not 
rest  upon  the  rind  of  earth.  Seen  from  these  outer 
peaks,  it  glows  softly  off  in  space.  The  clouds  crouch 
low,  eager  to  slip  out  of  the  reach  of  their  enemy,  the 
wind.  They  become  ashen  gray.  They  invade  the 
Nubian  darkness  as  gray  hair  the  black  locks  of  youth. 

From  the  northeast  come  flashes  of  lightning.  It  is  a 
night  which,  among  men,  harmonizes  with  terror  and 
revolution;  on  the  summit  of  Fuji  it  is  an  intoxicating 
mixture  of  distance  dissolved  in  space.  Down  there 
below  the  collision  of  two  small  bodies  extinguishing  a 
spark  of  life  would  be  called  a  tragedy;  up  here,  among 
the  worlds,  one  could  watch  a  war  of  stars  with  unruffled 
detachment. 

We  reached  the  seventh  station  somewhere  about  one 


3o6  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

o'clock.  The  moon  had  already  decided  to  look  the 
other  side  of  Fuji  in  the  face,  and  the  wall  of  darkness 
we  were  left  to  climb  seemed  more  and  more  inaccessible. 
Moonlight  in  the  sphere  of  ordinary  mortals  is  ripples 
and  shadows;  moonlight  on  Fuji  is  as  undisturbed  as 
water  in  the  ocean's  depths.  But  the  crunching  of  the 
cinders  never  ceased  beneath  our  feet. 

I  was  loath  to  go  in.  The  long,  low  hut-cave  packed 
with  sleepers  one  against  the  other,  the  thick  futon 
covering  each  and  rolling  from  one  to  the  other  like  a 
paralyzed  sea,  the  thick  green  smoke  choking  life — that 
was  no  lure  against  the  superb  outside. 

The  wind  was  colder  than  a  wind  in  December.  The 
two  slender  candles  barely  holding  on  to  the  flame  which 
the  wind  through  the  cracks  sought  to  snatch,  the  brass 
bowl  and  polished  brass  inscriptions  on  the  altar  of  the 
little  shrine  in  which  we  were  quartered,  reflected  a 
glimmer  of  light,  while  the  towels,  hung  by  business  men 
to  advertise  their  trade,  flapped  and  swayed  as  though 
merely  under  the  eaves. 

At  sea-level  the  sun  rises :  from  the  top  of  Fuji  the  sun 
is  born.  How  many  thousands  have  toiled  through  the 
night  to  attend  this  rebirth!  Princes  and  paupers,  and 
legend  even  includes  an  emperor  of  China.  Men  may 
not  be  bettered  in  the  slightest  so  far  as  their  actions 
among  men  go  after  their  return,  but  no  man  can  carry 
away  with  him  remembrances  of  sunrise  from  the 
summit  of  Fuji  and  not  be  a  different  man.  It  is  like 
love  purified,  for  there  is  neither  give  nor  take  in  it. 

Two  thousand  feet  above  us  on  the  cinder  slopes  was 
a  sight  I  shall  never  forget,  a  sight  which  can  occur  only 
on  rare  occasions  and  only  in  a  country  politically  pin- 
nacled as  is  Japan.  Just  above  the  eighth  station,  or 
about  twelve  thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  following  the 
serpentine  irregularity  of  the  path,  moved  a  throng  of 
men  in  khaki  and  in  black.  As  the  sun  appeared  over 


MORNING  AT  THE  TOP  307 

the  cloud-reef  below,  this  entire  mass  halted  and  faced 
about,  and  a  dim,  distant  sound  of  exclamation  quivered 
down  the  slope.  There  were  fifteen  hundred  soldiers 
who  had  come  to  guard  the  Japanese  Prince  Kuninomiya 
on  his  way  to  the  summit.  Added  to  this  mass  must 
have  been  fully  five  hundred  civilians  making  their  first 
or  annual  ascent.  I  had  all  sorts  of  visions  of  Oriental 
salutations  of  the  sun,  but  though  the  fact  that  these 
men  came  on  order  and  not  on  impulse  somewhat  dulled 
the  splendor  of  that  scene,  still  it  was  inspiring  beyond 
words. 

The  first  ascent  I  made  was  from  Subashiri.  When 
we  reached  the  peak  at  six-thirty  we  were  welcomed  by 
the  biting  wind,  strong  enough  to  lift  whomsoever  vent- 
ured away  from  the  lava  wall  clear  off  his  feet.  Very 
few  climbers  went  anywhere  near  the  crater,  and  those 
who  did  returned  rather  hurriedly.  In  double  file,  the 
soldiers  were  marched  off  up  the  ridge  and  they  disap- 
peared in  a  cloud.  We  risked  the  wind  and  reached  the 
edge,  creeping  on  our  stomachs  for  a  glance  over  into  the 
crater.  A  gale  from  over  the  gulch  pressed  down  the 
deep  pit  and  brought  back  with  it  a  cloud  of  mist. 
Heaps  of  snow  lay  bedded  in  the  inner  cavities  where 
once  was  seething  lava.  As  the  wind  made  a  breach  in 
the  cloud  it  revealed  the  snowdrifts  like  sharp,  angry 
teeth.  My  companion,  just  a  youth,  said,  with  some- 
what of  awe  in  his  voice,  "It  felt  as  though  you 
were  looking  into  something  which  you  had  no  right 
to  see." 

On  the  second  ascent,  the  following  year,  from  the 
Gotemba  side,  our  progress,  especially  after  the  last 
station  this  side  of  the  summit,  was  much  slower.  This 
short  last  lap  took  us  an  hour  and  a  half  to  negotiate, 
slipping  on  the  loose  clinkers  beneath  our  feet.  At  one 
place  we  entered  as  it  were  a  pocket  into  which  the  wind 
could  not  get.  The  heat  of  the  sun  was  intense;  and 


3o8  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

when  at  last  we  reached  the  crater,  rest  was  the  only 
thing  desirable. 

The  day  could  not  have  been  more  perfect,  even  though 
it  was  seven  days  after  the  favorable  season.  There 
wasn't  a  cloud  about,  the  nearest  being  fully  ten  thou- 
sand feet  below  us,  where  they  were  packed  along  the 
shore  like  driven  snow.  So  many  pictures  are  seen 
everywhere  in  Japan  in  which  Fuji  plays  a  prominent 
part,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  glory  of  the  mountain  is 
from  its  summit  down.  The  sea,  fringed  with  cloud, 
was  spread  with  mist.  Behind  us,  the  crater  was  cold 
and  void.  It  is  not  deep,  but  clogged  with  scoria,  irregu- 
lar and  cavernous.  Some  day,  we  are  told,  it  will  burst 
open  again  and  the  spot  now  frequented  will  become  the 
edge  of  ruin  reborn. 

Descent  is  rapid.  The  Gotemba  side  seems  vastly 
more  desolate  than  that  of  Subashiri.  No  one  keeps 
to  the  zigzag  path,  but  all  cut  a  straight  line  for  the 
bottom.  The  broad  sweep  of  powdered  brown  cinder 
into  which  one  sinks  ankle-deep  lies  interminably  beneath 
one.  What  a  scene  of  utter  desolation!  One's  heart 
sinks  in  emotion  as  does  the  body  in  space.  One  longs 
to  get  down  again  to  the  level  of  human  commonality 
where  life  abounds  even  though  in  conflict;  where  emo- 
tion is  tempered  with  materiality  and  made  tangible. 
Emotion  is  coarse  below,  but  is  more  real.  And  one 
vows  never  to  make  the  ascent  again — while  one  is  on 
high.  But  though  one  leaves  the  waste  of  ash  behind, 
in  memory  it  never  leaves  one,  but  lures  one  for  another 
ascent. 

At  the  base  we  obtained  horses  again  and  trudged 
along  over  the  seven  and  a  half  miles  back  to  Gotemba. 
It  is  wearisome  and  slow,  because  Japanese  horses  are 
all  led.  We  entered  a  heavy  fog  which  lay  over  the 
earth  all  night.  Images  of  trees  in  weird,  fantastic  shapes 
stood  embossed  in  the  white  mist.  A  more  pictorial 


FUJI  WORSHIP  309 

ending  to  our  ascent  could  not  have  been  made.  Our 
train  of  horses  and  coolies,  the  two  girls  leading  the  ani- 
mals and  the  boy  following  behind;  ahead  of  us  moved 
another  climber — all  pushing  on  into  the  mist. 

Seeing  the  throngs  which  crowded  the  path  of  Fuji- 
yama, I  wondered  which  one  of  us  really  knew  why  he 
climbed  its  slopes.  Some  put  it  down  to  Shintoism  and 
call  these  climbers  pilgrims.  But  that  excludes  me. 
Some  say  they  are  nature-worshipers,  but  Fuji  is  not 
beautiful  at  close  range. 

The  use  of  the  word  "worship"  is  so  entangled  with 
rites  and  incantations  that  it  is  hard  to  say  whether  this 
opinion  is  justified.  I  saw  some  worship  at  Fuji. 
There  were  many  who  had  come  from  great  distances  to 
make  the  ascent.  The  paths  are  beset  with  shrines  at 
which  some  form  or  other  of  religious  practice  is  con- 
ducted, such  as  stamping  the  white  pilgrims'  coats  or 
burning  the  seal  into  their  staffs.  But  this  is  in  itself 
not  worship.  Yet  only  a  deep  religious  conviction  could 
make  old  men  and  women  undergo  the  strain  of  such  a 
climb.  In  the  summer  of  1918  over  seventeen  thousand 
people,  including  seven  women  of  over  seventy  years  of 
age,  made  the  summit.  And  once  a  zealous  couple  at- 
tempted to  spend  a  winter  on  the  peak  and  had  to  be 
rescued  before  very  long. 

It  is  said  that  Japanese  are  great  lovers  of  nature  or 
are  nature-worshipers.  This  does  not  strike  me  as  being 
exactly  the  correct  statement  of  the  case.  I  cannot  say 
that  I  saw  any  exceptional  regard  for  Fuji  shown  by  any 
of  the  hundreds  of  climbers  I  met  in  both  my  ascents. 
Fact  is,  Fuji  cannot  be  loved  in  itself — but  only  as  a 
symbol  when  seen  from  a  distance. 

In  place  of  what  I  should  call  a  real  love  of  nature 
there  exists  in  Japan  a  sort  of  nature  ritual.  Super- 
stition has  invested  many  things  in  nature  with  spiritual 
significance  or  even  deified  them,  but  apart  from  that 


310  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Japanese  do  not  take  exceptional  delight  in  the  wild. 
I  do  not  say  that  all  Japanese  do  not  really  love  nature, 
but  the  claptrap  which  says  all  do  is  as  false  as  are  a 
good  many  things  said  for  Japan.  There  is  much  neglect 
of  nature,  actual  and  potential.  A  foreign  enthusiast 
wrote  about  Japanese  love  of  flowers  and  said  that  they 
"prefer  to  leave  them  in  their  natural  state,"  and  that 
to  compare  this  love  with  our  desire  to  pick  them  is  to 
make  of  us  "a  race  of  vandals."  Yet  this  statement 
was  made  in  utter  disregard  of  the  fact  that  all  cities  are 
possessed  of  flower-girls  who  sell  them  in  the  streets,  and 
that  flower  arrangement  is  the  pride  and  the  art  of  Japan. 
Japanese  do  pick  flowers,  just  as  do  we.  But  whether 
they  frequent  places  of  beauty  for  their  beauty's  sake 
or  simply  because  Buddhism  and  Shintoism  have  selected 
them  for  shrines  and  temples  is  another  matter.  And 
whether  they  pour  out  into  the  open  to  see  the  plum- 
and  cherry-blossoms  or  simply  because  it  gives  them  an 
opportunity  to  indulge  in  gallons  of  sake  and  beer  is 
likewise  a  moot  question. 

Then  why  do  people  climb  and  crowd  old  Fuji  ?  Why 
did  I  sit  in  that  little  shrine  and  write  by  the  light  of 
two  thin  candles?  Why  did  they  burn  themselves  out? 
Why  did  the  flame  cling  to  the  wick  when  it  might  have 
wandered  off  with  the  wind ?  Why  did  the  brass  glitter? 
Why  does  the  wind  blow,  the  bell  ring,  the  house  stand  ? 
And  Fuji,  dead  and  crumbling,  why  does  it  support 
these  thousands  of  pilgrims? 

Twelve  thousand  feet  above  the  sea  hovers  the 
answer.  Twelve  thousand  feet  out  of  the  reach  of  the 
waves  and  the  sound  of  the  sea — that  sea  twelve  thou- 
sand miles  of  which  I  have  been  four  times  over.  Twelve 
thousand  years  ago  Fuji  was  submerged  beneath  that 
sea;  for  twelve  thousand  years  it  slowly  rose.  And  now 
it  is  submerged  in  a  sea  of  space  twelve  thousand  times 
twelve  thousand  would  barely  measure  a  degree  of  its 


A  SEA  OF  SPACE  311 

immensity.  Ninety-two  million  miles  away  is  the 
unswerving  sun ;  halve  it  and  the  moon  beams  lovelessly ; 
encircle  it  and  you  have  slashed  a  thousand  suns  with 
your  imagined  line's  directness,  pierced  a  myriad  con- 
stellations, and  lost  your  mathematical  arrow  in  the 
heart  of  some  unbegotten  form  of  life.  Little  wonder 
then  that  Fuji  is  worshiped  by  the  Japanese,  for  from 
its  peak  these  things  stand  out  clearly  and  our  world  of 
little  things  shrinks  to  the  size  of  a  grain  of  star-dust. 


Part    Four 
CRITICAL 


XXI 

ETA — THE    SUBMERGED 

|T  is  a  commonplace  in  photography  that  good 
pictures  are  obtained  by  "exposing  for  the 
shadows  and  letting  the  high  lights  take 
care  of  themselves."  Feeling  that  my  pict- 
ure of  Japanese  life  would  be  flat  if  I  per- 
mitted myself  to  dwell  upon  its  happier  phases  only,  I 
took  to  investigating  its  nether  worlds.  The  measure 
of  real  progress  in  any  nation  is  the  extent  to  which 
consideration  is  given  to  social-welfare  work.  That  is 
exactly  where  one  can  put  his  finger  on  the  vital  things 
in  Japanese  life  and  see  whether  there  has  been  any 
real  progress  or  not. 

On  questions  of  form  and  morality  Japanese  are  be- 
coming wise  enough  to  see  that  imitation  and  whole- 
sale adoption  of  western  ways  are  dangerous.  But  on 
questions  of  social  legislation  they  are  not  wise  in  our 
follies.  Industrially  they  have  copied  everything  foreign 
without  discretion.  Thus,  instead  of  avoiding  our  in- 
dustrial evils,  they  have  stuck  their  heads  in  their 
accumulations  of  golden  sand.  Practically  nothing  is 
being  done  to  get  at  the  roots  of  poverty.  And  as  late 
as  August  8,  1918,  it  was  only  necessary  for  a  man  to 
be  known  as  a  socialist  for  him  to  be  tried  in  camera 
and  sentenced  on  the  charge  of  Idse-majestt,  even  though 
the  basis  of  the  case  was  a  personal  quarrel. 

Besides  having  acquired  most  of  the  evils  of  western 
industrialism,  Japan  has  had  unique  evils  of  her  own, 


3i6  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Foremost  among  these  are  the  distinctions  which  set 
apart  a  section  of  the  Japanese  for  absolute  ostracism — 
the  eta.  The  growth  has  been  cancerous  because  in  no 
sense  foreign  to  the  Japanese  body-politic.  It  is  of  the 
essence  of  Japan's  political,  religious,  social,  economic, 
and  moral  systems  by  which  the  country  has  thrived 
for  twenty-five  hundred  years.  It  is  bound  up  with  the 
false  notions  of  honor,  prestige,  and  divinity,  and  can- 
not be  dissociated  from  bushido. 

The  purpose  of  this  section  is  to  touch  upon  all  these 
phases  of  Japanese  life.  One  of  the  basic  principles  of 
Buddhism  is  illuminated  by  the  answer  of  the  Blessed 
One  to  the  bhikkhus  on  their  question,  "What  conduct 
toward  women  dost  thou  prescribe?"  "Think  to  your- 
self," he  answered.  "I,  as  a  samana,  will  live  in  this  sin- 
ful world  as  the  spotless  leaf  of  the  lotus,  unsoiled  by  the 
mud  in  which  it  grows."  And  though  without  written 
code  that  also  is  the  manner  in  which  Japan's  political 
structure  has  grown.  Yet  before  we  can  in  any  way 
appreciate  the  quality  of  Japanese  imperialism  we  must 
know  the  nature  of  that  very  mud  in  which  it  grows — 
and  that  muck  is  etaism — slums,  crime,  and  industri- 
alism; the  leaf  is  its  schools,  its  art  and  its  history  be- 
spattered with  the  mud  of  politics.  The  flower  we  can 
only  sense,  nor  will  the  writer  prophesy  whether  it  is 
blooming  or  has  turned  toward  the  fall  of  its  existence. 

There  are  over  a  million  human  beings  in  Japan  who, 
though  essentially  Japanese,  live  a  miserable  existence, 
worse  than  that  of  the  ordinary  poor  and  even  lower 
than  the  criminal.  They  are  the  eta — the  pariah,  the 
butchers,  tanners,  and  scavengers.  At  first  "eta" 
seems  merely  a  mysterious  term  of  opprobrium.  Even 
among  the  foreigners  one  hears  the  word,  though,  un- 
fortunately, always  in  anger  at  some  grievance.  Yet  it 
is  a  term  one  dare  not  use  to  a  man's  face.  One  flings  it 
at  him  behind  his  back,  in  sneaking  abuse.  Eta,  thus 


"SH!    DON'T  USE  THAT  WORD!"  317 

employed,  means  "dirty  dog,"  and  something  worse. 
The  eta  are  also  a  convenient  "goat"  for  politicians 
where  anything  goes  wrong.  When  the  short-sighted 
Japanese  bureaucrat  sees  his  "yacht"  of  state  in  danger 
from  the  mine  he  has  himself  set  afloat,  he  attacks  the 
first  humble  sampan  that  looms  on  the  horizon.  So  the 
eta  are  sources  of  unrest  in  the  Empire,  and  loomed  large 
in  the  case  of  the  rice  riots. 

Aside  from  the  muffled  use  of  the  term,  I  heard  little 
and  saw  less  of  any  people  answering  to  this  mysterious 
name  during  the  early  months  of  my  residence  in  Japan. 
However,  examples  of  this  class  of  people  roam  about 
the  crowded  byways  and  make  their  living — the  men  by 
mending  geta  (wooden  clogs),  the  women  by  playing 
the  Japanese  guitar.  During  my  first  days  of  residence 
in  Kyoto  I  was  disturbed  every  morning  by  one  of  the 
ge/a-menders  who  wandered  round  and  round  about 
that  particular  square,  crying  in  a  somewhat  pleading 
and  pleasing  tone:  "Naosh,  nao-osh,  nao-osh!"  his  voice 
sinking  appealingly.  The  word  naoshi,  to  mend,  becomes 
almost  unrecognizable,  like  the  calls  of  our  newsboys. 

About  the  time  that  I  began  thus  to  distinguish  certain 
outcasts  among  the  poor  I  became  interested  in  the 
slums  in  and  about  Kobe — slums  such  as  in  our  under- 
standing of  the  word  do  not  and  could  not  exist  in  the 
West.  There  I  met  a  young  Japanese  evangelist  who 
has  given  himself  up  to  the  study  and  elevation  of  the 
poor.  Through  him  I  learned  something  more  of  the 
eta.  As  we  wandered  into  the  depths  of  unknown  Japan, 
I  used  the  word  unthinkingly. 

" 'Sh !  Don't  use  that  word  here,"  he  whispered.  "It 
will  make  them  angry."  My  interest  aroused,  he  and  I 
planned  to  devote  the  following  winter  to  investigating 
life  among  them,  little  thinking  that  three  months  later 
they  would  have  forced  themselves  upon  the  attention 
of  the  whole  Empire. 


3i8  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

From  then  on  I  enlisted  the  services  of  any  one  who 
came  across  my  path,  and  visited  several  villages  in 
which  these  people  still  live.  It  was  not  a  simple  matter. 
The  Japanese  are  still  living  in  their  old  exclusiveness. 
Proud,  trying  to  maintain  appearances,  they  are  loath 
to  let  the  outsider  look  into  that  side  of  their  life  which 
is  likely  to  jeopardize  their  fame.  It  became  obvious 
to  me  from  the  first  that  the  every-day  Japanese  would 
not  give  me  any  great  assistance. 

"It  will  be  very  difficult  to  find  out,"  said  a  young 
Japanese  lawyer  from  Tokyo  who  was  stopping  at  the 
same  hotel.  "Its  difficulty  doesn't  bother  me,"  I  pro- 
tested. But  to  every  question  he  assured  me  he  knew 
nothing  about  them.  However,  I  extracted  quite  a 
little  from  him. 

I  was  amazed  to  find  how  little  the  Japanese  really  do 
know  of  these  miserable  ones  round  about  them.  The 
hotel  proprietor's  son,  eager  to  practise  his  English,  con- 
sented to  guide  me  to  their  villages,  but  when  in  one  he 
stood  aloof,  almost  as  though  in  terror  of  contamination. 

It  was  not  only  from  the  average  man  that  I  en- 
countered indifference.  I  had  been  told  to  see  the 
police  for  information.  The  chief  stood  stamping 
records  with  a  seal,  doing  work  any  child  should  have 
done.  After  a  fifteen-minute  debate  I  was  told  to  go  to 
the  governor  of  the  Ken  for  permission.  The  governor 
immediately  sent  the  head  of  the  department  dealing 
with  these  people  out  with  me,  and  thence  I  had  a  retinue 
of  inspectors,  interpreters,  and  followers. 

Though  I  now  had  some  official  assistance,  it  took  me 
days  to  get  hold  of  the  threads  which  lead  to  these 
unapproachable  outcasts,  pariahs  who  have  become  so 
degraded  that  they  resent  any  show  of  interest  in  them. 
I  did,  however,  succeed  in  discovering  where  to  look  for 
them.  Eta  villages  are  not  hard  to  locate.  Generally 
they  are  somewhat  on  the  outskirts  of  the  main  town  or 


SEVENTEEN  TIlorSAND   IMI.r.RlMS  MADE  THK  Sl'MMIT  OF  FIJI  THAT  SUMMER 


Pt'NTS,  RAFTS,  AND  I.If.IITFRS  CROWD  THF.  RIVER  AT  NAOOYA 


THE  SAMISKN  MAS  NO  MTSIC  IN  IT  UUT  REQUIRES  A  LONG  FACE 


A  SOCIAL  ERUPTION  319 

city,  but  often  in  modern  Japanese  cities  they  will  be 
found  surrounded  by  thickly  crowded  districts.  In 
Kobe,  for  instance,  one  village  is  side  by  side  with  the 
worst  slum  to  be  found  in  Japan — Shinkawa.  The 
stranger  cannot  tell  which  is  slum  and  which  eta  village, 
except  that  his  guide  will  immediately  whisper  to  him 
not  to  use  the  word  eta  any  more.  There  is  also  a 
large  eta  district  in  Hyogo — which  is  the  older  city 
now  incorporated  in  the  city  of  Kobe.  A  little  out 
toward  the  hills  is  another  district  known  as  eta.  Then 
nine  miles  from  Kobe  is  Shioya,  on  the  Inland  Sea,  a 
lovely  residential  section  for  foreigners  and  rich  Japanese. 
A  path  leads  across  the  hills  to  an  eta  village  a  couple  of 
miles  away.  It  is  merely  a  small  group  of  thatch-roofed 
houses  with  mud  walls  not  a  little  weathered,  which, 
but  for  its  isolation,  would  not  be  more  noticeable  than 
any  other  Japanese  rural  village.  In  and  about  Kyoto, 
the  loveliest  city  in  all  Japan,  the  greatest  number  of 
eta  will  be  found. 

When  I  had  got  to  the  point  of  mapping  out  the 
geographical  distribution  of  the  eta,  my  investigation 
received  an  impetus  and  a  new  turn.  They  sprang  into 
the  political  limelight.  It  is  always  convenient  to 
blame  the  dog  when  anything  happens,  and  something 
very  serious  was  beginning  to  happen.  All  over  the 
Empire  the  poor  were  rising  in  rebellion  against  the  high 
cost  of  living.  Profiteers  and  speculators  had  been 
driving  the  price  of  rice  away  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
laboring  element,  to  whom  rice  is  the  "bread"  of  life. 
The  initial  rumbling  of  these  outbreaks  was  in  places  as 
distant  from  the  large  eta  centers  as  Toyama  Prefecture, 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  northwest  from  Tokyo, 
though  the  disturbances  spread  explosively  to  the  big 
centers  like  Kobe,  Kyoto,  Nagoya,  and  Tokyo.  The 
majority  of  the  rioters  were  ordinary  laborers — men  and 

women.     Yet  all  these  facts  notwithstanding,  the  eta 
21 


320  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

were  immediately  accused  of  being  at  the  bottom  of  the 
trouble.  It  was  safer  to  blame  them  than  to  trouble  the 
speculators. 

A  flurry  of  investigation  forthwith  took  place.  Accu- 
sations flew.  Eyes  were  blinded.  The  government 
evaded  accounting  for  the  real  causes  of  the  riots  by 
instigating  investigations  into  the  condition  of  the  eta. 
It  was  as  though  a  man  seized  with  hunger  pangs  were 
to  turn  to  the  problem  of  why  crabs  walk  both  wrays. 
Count  Okuma,  Japan's  "Grand  Old  Man,"  ex-Premier, 
went  so  far  in  his  wisdom  in  this  matter  as  to  compare 
these  eta  with  the  American  negro  slaves.  In  1871,  after 
centuries  of  weary  degradation,  the  eta  were  officially 
liberated.  In  1918,  after  half  of  one  century  of  freedom, 
they  realized  they  were  in  no  wise  better  off  than  before. 
And  the  government  admits  that  this  unjust  racial  dis- 
crimination has  not  been  eliminated  by  mere  edict. 

Published  sources  of  information  being  limited,  I 
began  to  make  my  own  observations  concerning  the 
present  conditions  of  the  outcasts.  I  found  that  there 
are  several  divisions  of  this  low  class  of  people.  The 
Hinin,  or  non-humans,  are  beggars  and  vagrants.  The 
Sanka,  of  whom  there  are  about  a  thousand,  are  de- 
scendants of  robber  folk  who  inhabit  the  mountains 
(san}.  About  three  years  ago  a  number  of  Sanka 
roamed  the  hills  back  of  Kyoto.  They  lived  in  tents, 
holes  in  the  ground,  or  in  whatever  crude  shelters  they 
could  find.  They  were  really  nomad  criminals.  Then 
the  government  began  a  crusade  against  them,  and  for 
two  years  it  has  pressed  and  harassed  them,  finally 
forcing  them  back  to  Inari  in  Fushimi  Province.  Since, 
they  have  hid  themselves  completely.  On  Ikemachi, 
Kyoto,  they  may  be  found  in  kitchen-yado,  a  type  of 
restaurant  common  in  the  slums  of  Japan  into  wrhich 
the  poor  come  to  cook  for  themselves,  paying  a  few  sen 
for  wood  and  for  the  use  of  the  "equipment." 


RIVER-BANK  THINGS  321 

The  Kawaramono  were  also  an  outcast  lot  who  some 
two  hundred  years  ago  lived  under  the  bridges  along 
the  shingle  river-beds,  from  which  they  get  their  name, 
kawara  being  that  part  of  the  stony  bed  of  a  river  which 
is  dry  except  in  high  water,  and  mono  meaning  thing. 
Little  is  now  to  be  seen  of  these  unhappy  people.  On 
the  west  bank  of  the  Kamogawa,  which  makes  its 
broad  and  tortuous  way  through  Kyoto,  is  a  small 
village  called  Kuramaguchi.  It  is  made  up  of  these 
vagrants  who  had  formerly  kept  the  banks  as  their 
rendezvous.  They  have  since  risen  in  the  social  scale 
to  where  they  are  eta,  earning  their  livelihood  by  simple 
agriculture  and  as  greengrocers,  or  as  stone  masons  and 
architects  of  tombstones  (dokata).  Their  condition  is 
rather  good,  their  homes,  as  Japanese  poor  homes  go, 
being  fairly  stable  with  even  a  chest  of  drawers  and 
other  evidences  of  civilization.  It  is  said  that  there  are 
several  households  among  them  reputed  to  be  worth 
ten  thousand  yen  each.  The  government  has  encour- 
aged organization  among  them  into  reform  societies, 
whose  object  is  to  develop  their  physical  and  mental 
well-being,  encourage  cleanliness,  orderliness,  and  good 
behavior. 

There  are  several  other  divisions  now  lost  in  the  general 
term  "eta."  The  name  represents  no  political  or  re- 
ligious class,  but  a  social  prejudice  deeply  rooted  in 
the  Japanese  consciousness.  Legally  the  term  is  taboo. 
They  are  now  called  the  Shin-heimin,  new-commoners, 
and  thus,  though  legally  no  distinction  is  made  between 
them  and  the  common  poor,  the  difference  is  recognized. 
With  the  people  they  are  still  outcasts,  and  none  is  so 
bold  as  to  venture  across  the  line. 

How,  then,  did  they  come  to  be  outcasts?  This  is  not 
an  easy  question  to  answer.  Even  some  of  the  most 
thorough-searching  authorities  on  Japanese  history  con- 
fess they  are  unable  definitely  to  trace  the  origin  of  the 


322  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

eta.  But  there  are  some  obvious  sources  from  which 
they  have  been  recruited. 

In  the  first  place,  there  may  be  among  them  the  off- 
spring of  slaves  taken  by  the  Japanese  from  the  Aino, 
the  first  inhabitants  of  the  islands  of  Japan.  The  proud 
Japanese  would  gladly  assign  this  alien  origin  to  their 
outcasts.  Indeed,  they  go  still  farther,  trying  to  con- 
vince the  world  and  themselves  that  these  outcasts 
were  Chinese  and  Korean  prisoners  of  war.  But  a  class 
that  came  into  existence  so  many  hundreds  of  years  ago 
would  interest  us  as  foreign  only  if  it  had  retained  its 
original  characteristics.  This  is  not  the  case.  James 
Murdoch,  the  historian,  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  the 
absence  of  Aino  characteristics  among  the  present  eta 
is  due  to  the  gradual  accession  of  degraded  Japanese  into 
their  ranks.  Eta  cannot  be  recognized  apart  from  the 
general  type  of  Japanese.  Therefore,  for  all  practical 
purposes,  all  studies  of  the  eta  must  be  made  on  the 
assumption  that  they  are  Japanese.  Thousands  of  the 
Yamato  (pure  Japanese)  have  filtered  down  into  that 
stagnant  group,  thus  leaving  the  problem  Japanese,  and 
not  alien.  It  is  therefore  in  the  Japanese  social  order  itself 
that  we  must  look  for  an  explanation  of  their  existence. 

Within  this  social  order,  two  noteworthy  causes  of 
etaism  will  be  found — the  Buddhist  faith  and  feudal 
custom. 

Buddhism,  that  most  gentle  of  religions,  has  been 
responsible  for  two  great  crimes  in  Japan.  One  is  the 
eta;  the  other  the  treatment  of  animals;  and  these  two 
crimes  are  closely  interrelated.  The  edict  against  the 
killing  of  any  creature  has  resulted  in  slow  torture  of 
undesirable  animals,  and  the  necessity  of  using  them  for 
clothing  has  brought  into  existence  the  eta.  Even  to 
this  day  Japanese  will  put  kittens  out  to  starve  rather 
than  do  away  with  them  outright.  To  touch  the  carcass 
of  an  animal  was  to  become  defiled,  according  to  both 


A  NEW  LIGHT  ON  BUSHIDO  323 

Buddhism  and  Shintoism;  yet,  since  it  was  unavoidable, 
the  eta  took  upon  themselves  the  burdens  of  this  fanat- 
icism. To  this  day  they  are  the  butchers,  the  leather- 
dressers,  and  buriers  of  dead  animals.  They  live  in 
separate  villages  and  cannot  enter  the  houses  of  even 
the  poorest  of  the  poor.  Among  the  Maories  of  New 
Zealand  there  was  a  striking  similarity.  To  allow  an 
ordinary  Maori  to  drink  out  of  the  cup  of  a  chief  was 
to  render  it  taboo,  and  the  miserable  wretch  upon  whom 
fell  the  task  of  burying  the  dead  was  compelled  to  live 
apart  in  a  state  abject  beyond  description. 

Responsibility  for  the  existence  of  the  eta  may  sec- 
ondly be  traced  to  Japanese  military  ethics.  We  have 
been  led  to  believe  that  the  Japanese  aristocrats  of  old 
were  all  brave  and  faithful  warriors,  who  out  of  a  fear 
of  disgrace  following  capture  or  out  of  loyalty  to  a  de- 
ceased lord  did  not  hesitate  to  commit  harakiri,  prefer- 
ring death  to  a  life  devoid  of  full  happiness  and  glory. 
This  custom  is  spoken  of  with  intense  pride  by  every  one 
in  Japan.  But  it  is  never  published  that  there  were  not 
a  few  among  Japanese  soldiery  who  preferred  to  live  in 
misery  among  the  outcasts  rather  than  cut  themselves 
open  according  to  code.  Nature  has  its  revenge  upon 
all  forms  of  social  organization  which  tend  toward 
crystallization.  In  Japan  class  distinction,  till  this  very 
day  being  more  set  than  anywhere  else,  almost  defeated 
its  own  purpose.  So  there  were  some  to  whom  life,  no 
matter  how  mean,  was  dearer  than  a  code,  and  they 
slipped  away  into  the  eta  villages,  cheating  the  sword  of 
its  prey.  Some  eta  still  have  the  armor  which  belonged 
to  them  as  samurai.  Perhaps  these  renegades  among 
the  old  samurai  were  merely  suffering  from  the  fact  that 
they  were  the  only  ones  who  had  not  wholly  lost  their 
sense  of  humor. 

There  are  now  fully  1,200,000  eta,  most  of  whom  live 
within  the  vicinity  of  Kobe  and  Kyoto.  The  following 


324  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

list  given  me  by  Mr.  Kagawa  is  perhaps  as  nearly  correct 
as  it  is  possible  to  make  it,  of  those  living  near  Kobe : 

Number  of 
Population  Villages 

Chinese 4,557  4 

Korean  (Immigrants) 1,368  4 

(Captives) 5,204  5 

Those  caring  for  shrines 4,881  8 

"          "       "  temples 945  6 

Sons  of  the  aboriginal  Aino 1,124  3 

Descendants  from  noted  families 796  2 

Nomads 1 2,637  56 

From  common  people 5,°i3  17 

Descendants  from  nobility 943  5 

samurai 4,754  13 

"     scavengers 5>54i  16 

"     tanners 2,189  n 

Offshoots  of  other  colonies 3 ,388  15 

Beggars 727  i 

Unknown 13,835  65 

Total 67,902  231 

According  to  a  book  by  Mr.  Tomeoka  Kosuke,  who 
has  devoted  himself  to  the  improvement  of  the  eta,  their 
distribution  throughout  the  Empire  is  as  follows: 

Hyogo  (Kobe) 95>772 

Kyoto 72,222 

Fukuoka 60,824 

Ehime 45*59° 

Hiroshima 44, 405 

Okayama 37,699 

Osaka 34,878 

Miye 34,3*7 

Wakayama 32,935 

Kochi 27,705 

Shiga 23,721 

Saitama 23,332 

Yamaguchi 23,258 

Tokushima 29,01 2 

Total..  585,670 


WITHIN  AN  ETA  VILLAGE  325 

In  the  very  heart  of  Kyoto,  completely  surrounded 
by  ordinary  working-class  homes,  in  a  district  called 
Sanjo  is  an  eta  sore.  We  entered  by  way  of  a  narrow 
little  alley  not  more  than  five  feet  wide.  Within  this 
seclusion  will  be  found  several  families  of  eta,  mainly 
gcta  (wooden-clog)  menders — dirty,  crowded,  wretched— 
not  even  next  to  nature. 

I  visited  the  village  of  Nogouchi,  ten  minutes'  walk 
from  Nishijin,  the  silk-weaving  district  of  Kyoto.  Here 
the  poverty  is  just  a  hair's  breadth  above  dire  squalor, 
and  the  prospects  of  betterment  half  that  space  above 
hopelessness.  The  absence  of  even  the  simplest  sign 
of  refinement,  decency,  and  healthfulness  is  appalling. 
There  was  but  one  exception.  In  one  house,  a  rather 
good  structure,  was  a  new  grass  carpet  on  the  mats. 

Among  eta  may  be  found  some  extremely  well-to-do 
people,  worth  as  much  as  ten  thousand  yen  and  over, 
but  the  vast  majority  of  them  are  simply  poor  to  whom 
poverty  is  not  the  worst  of  ills.  They  confront  us  with 
a  curious  problem.  Sensitive  and  defiant,  they  resent 
any  interest  in  them  or  attempt  to  help  them.  Yet 
they  have  no  distinct  religious  convictions  which  evoke 
ostracism  from  the  dominant  religious  groups.  They 
have  no  group  organization,  each  being  too  individu- 
alistic. In  the  slums  I  felt  there  was  a  kindly  feeling 
toward  the  strange  foreigner,  but  in  the  eta  villages  the 
air  is  strong  with  surliness  and  resentment.  The 
"proprietor"  of  one  hovel  showed  anger  when  I  tried  to 
photograph  an  old  crony  beside  his  door.  A  Pied 
Piper's  following  of  diseased  and  emaciated  children 
gathered  in  the  eight-  or  ten-foot  alleyways.  The  mob 
of  little  urchins  was  up  in  arms  when  I  tried  to  photo- 
graph them.  There  was  a  division  of  opinion.  Some 
were  in  favor;  others  feared  the  picture  might  get  into 
the  newspapers.  This  spirit  is  worthy  of  consideration. 
A  strong  individualism,  a  spirit  of  defiance  and  indiffer- 


326  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

ence  to  consequence,  obtains  among  them.  They  lack 
organization  and  social  purpose.  One  man's  opinion  is 
as  good  as  another's,  and  even  the  little  tots  are  ready  to 
assert  themselves.  They  were  ready  to  mob  me  should 
I  have  gone  counter  to  their  wishes.  Before  the  Restora- 
tion, it  was  left  entirely  to  the  eta  to  keep  order  in  their 
own  villages. 

It  is  obviously  no  simple  task  to  devise  ways  and 
means  of  breaking  down  not  only  the  outer  world's 
prejudice,  but  their  own  false  pride.  It  seems  certain 
that  if  this  were  done,  the  eta  would  in  no  time  cease  to 
exist.  In  a  couple  of  generations  they  will  doubtless 
be  reabsorbed  into  the  Japanese  people.  Industrialism 
is  already  bringing  them  out  of  their  isolation.  When 
I  visited  the  detention  prison  in  Kobe,  where  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  of  the  rice-rioters  were  being  held 
for  trial,  half  a  dozen  in  a  cell,  the  warden  told  me  that 
many  of  them  were  eta.  At  present  the  government  is 
merely  resorting  to  a  stop-thief  method  of  reform.  To 
do  away  with  etaism,  more  than  mere  legislation  is  neces- 
sary. It  means  doing  away  with  the  pride  which,  even 
to-day,  when  the  samurai  is  no  more,  permits  a  Japanese 
to  put  into  the  1918  Who's  Who  in  Japan  the  infor- 
mation that  he  is  the  son  of  a  samurai  and  his  wife  the 
daughter  of  one  of  the  Heimin  (common  people).  The 
government  cannot  be  blamed  entirely  for  this  situation. 
A  society  for  equality  of  treatment  has  been  organized 
and  meetings  held,  with  many  prominent  officials  and 
eta  attending,  but  it  is  still  too  soon  to  prophesy.  Etaism 
is  a  matter  which  the  people  as  a  whole  have  supported 
and  which  they  must  destroy. 

The  government  is  trying  to  improve  these  conditions 
and  to  a  very  small  extent  has  succeeded.  But  preju- 
dice is  too  deeply  rooted.  Marriage  between  eta  and 
other  Japanese  is  becoming  more  frequent,  though  it  is 
said  that  recently  a  shoemaker  offered  ten  thousand  yen 


STRUGGLES  TO  EMERGE  327 

to  any  man  outside  the  eta  who  would  accept  his  daughter 
in  marriage,  but  there  was  none  so  poor  as  to  accept. 
A  student  of  mine  informed  me  that  one  pupil  in  his 
village  school  was  from  that  class.  He  was  exception- 
ally bright,  of  fairly  well-to-do  parents.  Still  the 
others  would  not  associate  with  him,  and  often  called 
him  names.  There  are  frequent  quarrels  among  the 
children  of  eta  and  other  poor,  and  it  is  the  delight  of  the 
latter  to  trick  the  eta  children  into  saying  the  word 
"Etajima,"  the  name  of  a  large  island,  in  order  to  get 
them  to  make  the  sound  "eta"  so  offensive  to  them. 
(The  name,  however,  has  no  connection  whatever  with 
the  eta.)  One  story  is  extant  of  a  man  who,  eta  by  birth, 
married  a  woman  of  good  family.  Later  they  discovered 
that  they  were  both  of  eta  origin.  And  a  well-known 
Minister  of  the  Navy  is  said  to  have  come  from  these 
outcasts.  I  know  a  professor,  one  of  the  finest  types  of 
men  I  have  met  in  Japan,  of  whom  it  has  been  said  that 
he  is  of  the  eta. 

Christian  missionaries  have  tried  to  work  among  the 
eta,  but  even  they  must  be  diplomatic.  One  American 
told  me  that  in  the  district  in  which  he  lived  some  little 
work  has  been  done  among  them  by  native  Christians. 
But  they  are  confronted  with  the  question  as  to  which 
would  net  them  more  souls — work  among  eta  or  among 
the  ordinary  poor- — for  if  a  Christian  mixes  too  freely 
with  the  eta  his  chances  for  work  among  his  equals  are 
hazarded.  This  missionary  tried  to  justify  his  case  by 
comparisons  with  work  among  the  negroes  in  the  South, 
but  the  cases  are  not  parallel,  for  the  eta  are  not  a  separate 
race,  as  is  the  negro.  No  Christian  worker  would  stay 
at  an  eta  home  if  there  were  no  hotel  within  reach,  nor 
would  he  eat  cake  or  drink  tea  with  them.  The  eta  once 
gave  a  tea  for  missionary  purposes  and  were  incensed 
because  the  guests  left  the  food  untouched. 

Only  one  act  of  gratitude  shown  the  eta  for  anything 


328  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

done  by  them  is  legend  among  the  Kobe  people.  The 
selling  of  flowers  in  the  streets  has  been  allotted  to  them. 
The  story  is  that  when  officials  were  searching  for  the 
grave  of  Kusunoki  Masashige,  the  celebrated  warrior 
and  arch-loyalist  of  the  ill-fated  Emperor  Go-Daigo, 
they  discovered  that  it  had  been  kept  in  order  and  flowers 
placed  upon  it  regularly  by  the  eta,  whose  village  was 
close  by. 


XXII 

WHERE     SLUMS    ARE     SLUMS 


the  back  alleys  in  Japan  are  invaria- 
bly clean  and  sanitary."  So  wrote  an 
American  woman  tourist  for  a  magazine 
published  by  and  for  one  of  the  Japanese 
steamship  companies.  This  and  similar 
statements  have  been  the  subject  of  not  a  little  reflection 
on  my  part  as  I  wandered  about  the  streets  of  Japan. 
Yet  I  never  realized  how  far  from  the  truth  it  really  is 
till  I  spent  a  few  hours  with  Mr.  Toyohito  Kagawa  in  the 
slums  of  Shinkawa,  Kobe.  There  is  not  a  large  city  in 
the  world  which  is  without  its  poor  districts,  while  some, 
like  New  York  and  London,  are  confronted  with  very 
serious  conditions.  But  it  is  safe  to  say  that  in  no 
civilized  country  in  the  world  would  just  such  conditions 
be  met  with  as  swamp  the  slums  of  this  town  of  little 
over  half  a  million  people.  Some  years  ago  a  street- 
cleaners'  strike  in  New  York  left  piles  of  garbage  several 
feet  high  upon  the  streets,  but,  bad  as  that  was,  it  was 
not  to  be  compared  with  the  accumulation  of  filth  which 
at  all  times  vitiates  the  slums  of  Shinkawa.  For  not 
only  is  there  no  efficient  system  for  the  removal  of  gar- 
bage, but  the  absence  of  sewerage  (universal  in  Japan) 
makes  the  situation  unmentionable.  In  New  York  and 
London,  with  over  seven  million  people,  the  streets  are 
wide  enough  for  two  or  three  wagons  to  pass  one  another 
at  one  time.  In  the  streets  of  Shinkawa  you  can  touch 
the  buildings  with  both  hands,  and  the  rooms  in  the 


330  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

houses  are  seldom  more  than  twelve  feet  by  six,  and 
there  is  never  more  than  one  room  to  a  house.  In 
these,  on  an  average,  four  to  five  people  shelter  them- 
selves from  the  wind  and  rain.  The  only  light  and  air 
available  is  from  the  five-foot  door,  and  the  only  pro- 
tection from  the  damp  ground  is  a  little  platform  eigh- 
teen inches  high  which  occupies  most  of  the  space  and 
serves  as  a  floor.  The  personal  effects  of  the  residents 
could  be  placed  in  a  small  hand-bag;  and  the  only  way 
of  cleaning  the  futon  in  which  they  sleep  would  be  by 
fumigation. 

Thirteen  thousand  people  live  in  just  this  way.  No 
one  passing  through  the  few  main  thoroughfares  would 
ever  imagine  that  the  narrow  openings,  wide  enough  for 
only  one  person  to  pass  through,  lead  to  human  habita- 
tions. Had  I  not  had  Mr.  Kagawa  with  me,  I  should 
certainly  not  have  thought  of  going  in. 

The  wretchedness  of  the  conditions  can  best  be  told 
by  giving  a  few  figures.  In  the  "olden  times"  when 
first  these  hovels  were  built  they  cost  $2.50  per  house; 
now,  with  the  increased  cost  of  materials,  they  are 
worth  $7.50,  and  the  land  on  which  each  stands  is  worth 
$7.50  per  tsubo  (thirty-six  square  feet).  There  are  no 
privies,  but  open  pits  with  but  three  mud  walls  and  a 
straw  roof — one  of  these  for  every  hundred  people.  This 
sewage  is  removed  not  by  the  city,  but  by  a  special 
sanitary  association  known  as  the  Ase  Kumiai,  the  funds 
for  which  are  subscribed  by  the  people  at  two  sen  (one 
cent)  a  month.  There  are  two  public  faucets  for  every 
thirteen  hundred  people.  Naturally,  the  wells  in  the 
district  are  unclean  and  use  of  their  water  for  cooking  is 
prohibited.  I  looked  into  one  and  it  was  full  of  debris; 
another  was  murky  and  unhealthful.  During  the 
drought  of  1917  people  stood  in  queues  of  fifty  and 
seventy  waiting  for  the  buckets  allotted  them. 

As  is  to  be  expected,  the  lists  of  the  sick  and  dead 


SHINKAWA  POOR  331 

are  long,  many  times  greater  in  proportion  to  the  popu- 
lation than  those  in  New  York.  Every  two  days  three 
people  die.  So  poor  are  the  people  that  decent  funerals 
are  impossible,  and  in  the  case  of  deceased  children  the 
little  bodies  are  placed  in  tea-boxes  or  orange-boxes  and 
carried  on  the  shoulders  of  some  male  relative  to  the 
crematory  up  the  hill,  where  the  city  burns  them  for 
nothing,  if  the  usual  charge  of  three  yen  cannot  be  met. 
The  birth-rate  is  nevertheless  great.  The  children 
fairly  litter  the  streets.  In  many  cases  they  are  not 
even  registered,  so  that  in  1918  there  were  ninety- three 
boys  of  whom  the  state  had  no  record.  Legally  these 
were  not  even  Japanese  subjects,  though  from  eleven  to 
twelve  years  of  age.  As  a  consequence  they  were 
excluded  from  the  schools. 

There  are  four  day  nurseries,  the  one  at  One  having 
been  started  by  foreigners  during  the  Russo-Japanese 
War  and  being  still  maintained  largely  by  foreign  con- 
tributions; and  a  Buddhist  nursery  recently  opened. 
The  Buddhists  have  also  started  a  Salvation  Army  of 
their  own,  but  its  ramifications  are  still  limited.  There 
is  another  nursery  belonging  to  a  rag  concern  maintained 
for  the  benefit  of  the  mothers  sorting  rags.  The  extreme 
fecundity  of  these  poor  people  intensifies  the  sufferings 
of  the  little  ones  far  beyond  the  normal. 

About  60  per  cent  of  the  people  in  Shinkawa  are 
capable  of  earning  their  own  living.  Twenty  per  cent 
are  sick  and  can  be  seen  lying  about  on  the  mats  of  these 
dirty,  open  shelters,  a  prey  to  the  evil  conditions  about, 
and  in  turn  spreading  the  contagion.  The  remaining 
20  per  cent  offset  disease  and  death  by  begging  or 
picking  the  meager  waste  from  garbage-boxes.  There 
are  about  five  hundred  carpenters'  helpers,  such  as  earn 
their  mite  by  carrying  mud,  plaster,  and  timber.  Others 
work  from  twelve  to  fourteen  hours  a  day  in  the  dock- 
yards and  factories.  A  fair  number  make  their  few  sen 


332  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

by  gambling.  It  is  known  to  the  police  that  one  man  is 
the  "king"  of  about  seven  hundred  gamblers.  Un- 
registered prostitution  affords  not  a  few  a  "living." 

Until  the  outbreak  of  the  rice  riots,  practically  nothing 
was  done  to  better  the  situation.  There  is  a  dispensary 
to  which  from  forty  to  sixty  poor  go  daily  for  medicines. 
But  food  is  what  they  need,  not  drugs.  Lately  the 
governor  of  the  Ken  established  an  employment  bureau 
in  Shinkawa,  and  a  hospital  was  talked  of.  But  what  is 
necessary  is  that  decent  houses  be  built  and  the  streets 
widened  and  straightened,  to  be  followed  by  the  laying 
of  sewers  which,  progressive  as  Japan  has  been  heralded 
to  be,  are  still  for  the  dim  and  distant  future. 

The  poor  themselves  are  the  most  helpful  to  one 
another.  The  gamblers,  hounded  so  bitterly  by  the  law, 
make  it  a  point  to  give  10  per  cent  of  all  moneys 
passing  through  their  hands  for  the  relief  of  other  poor. 
There  is  what  is  called  the  moshiko  money  club,  the 
individuals  of  which  contribute  two  or  three  yen,  as 
the  case  may  require,  so  that  they  may  supply  the 
urgent  needs  of  another.  This  the  debtor  pays  back 
month  by  month.  Sometimes  collections  are  made  in 
sums  of  from  five  to  ten  sen  from  each  household 
for  the  "unfortunate,"  who  returns  the  amount  as  soon 
as  he  is  able. 

Kobe  is  not  alone  in  the  possession  of  slums.  The 
governor  of  Kyoto  Ken  sent  with  me  the  man  in  charge 
of  the  slum  department  to  the  Hitchi-jo  police  station 
of  Kyoto.  I  was  introduced  to  the  chief  of  police,  who 
ordered  the  inspector  to  guide  us,  who  in  turn  ordered 
the  chief  for  the  district  to  come  along.  Add  a  couple  of 
Doshisha  University  youths  who  followed  the  son  of  a 
doctor  friend — head  of  a  free  maternity  hospital — and 
I  had  a  retinue  almost  as  long  as  that  of  a  daimyo  of  old. 
Sufficient,  indeed,  to  take  all  the  naturalness  out  of  the 


IDLENESS  333 

timid  poor  and  the  eta.  However,  I  appreciated  the 
courtesy  when  I  saw  the  places  I  was  taken  to. 

The  slums  are  immediately  to  the  right  of  the  great 
Kyoto  railway  station  as  one  comes  out  of  it.  Their 
position  was  provided  for  in  the  plans  for  the  city  as  laid 
out  by  the  architects  twelve  hundred  years  ago.  Our 
first  stopping-place  was  a  little  private  hospital  on  the 
edge  of  the  district.  The  day  before  they  had  four 
patients;  that  day  they  had  only  three.  One  died  that 
morning.  It  was  not  much  of  a  hospital,  being  no  more 
than  a  small  house  of  five  or  six  rooms  run  by  a  lone 
doctor. 

As  we  left  we  began  turning  corners  till  we  met  the 
policeman  of  the  district.  The  inspector  took  second 
place  as  cicerone,  advising,  in  a  semi-whisper,  that  I 
avoid  using  the  word  "eta, "  as  we  had  come  among  them 
and  they  would  resent  it.  As  we  penetrated  the  district 
the  conditions  became  poorer  and  poorer.  The  mud 
walls  in  the  houses  began  to  be  full  of  holes,  like  any 
fabric  after  careless  wear.  In  the  ditches  lurked  stag- 
nant water  and  slime.  The  children,  besides  being  dirty, 
were  covered  with  sores. 

Yet  these  ills  were  but  secondary  to  that  of  idleness. 
One  evidence  of  indolence  was  the  great  number  of 
children.  The  grown-ups  stood  about,  doing  nothing, 
while  the  walls  of  mud  crumbled  and  the  ditches  turned 
green.  Idleness  was  also  obvious  in  the  shops,  for  the 
wares  were  primitive  and  sparse,  evidence  of  craftsman- 
ship almost  entirely  wanting.  Aside  from  picking  over 
some  filthy  rags  or  washing  a  worn-out  garment,  there 
was  a  neglect  of  doing  which  chilled  one's  sense  of 
living.  It  seemed  so  cold  in  a  world  where  nothing  was 
being  made,  nothing  sold,  nothing  done.  It  seemed  they 
must  go  mad  from  very  inertia. 

Then  there  was  the  smell.  The  odor  of  unwashed 
human  beings,  even  on  that  chill  December  day,  was 


334  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

sickening.  The  dirty  garments,  which  hung  across 
bamboo  poles  from  house  to  house,  and  which  the  police- 
man ordered  removed  as  we  passed,  smelled  offensively. 
And  they  had  just  been  "washed." 

We  have  touched  on  the  three  worst  features  of  the 
slums,  but  there  was  much  more — or  less.  The  little 
huts  which  harbored  uncouth  wretches  rent  for  one 
cent  a  day.  Yes,  there  was  landlordism  even  there. 
Even  these  hovels,  as  next  to  nature  as  nature  itself  can 
stand  them,  were  not  owned  by  the  people  who  lived 
in  them. 

As  we  went  a  little  farther  we  came  to  the  very 
bottom — to  the  beggar  class.  Even  in  the  slums  ' '  class ' ' 
distinction  was  to  be  found.  They  were  set  apart  from 
the  others.  A  pygmy  of  a  woman  with  a  baby  on  her 
back,  her  face  covered  with  leper  sores,  stood  at  the 
door  of  her  hovel.  We  passed  her  and  went  round  the 
corner,  thinking  we  had  come  to  another  house,  but  she 
emerged  from  that  door  like  a  rabbit  with  two  holes  to 
its  burrow.  She  smiled  complacently,  as  though  trying 
to  lead  us  away  from  something  she  wished  to  hide — 
perhaps  the  male,  gambling  or  doing  something  to  be  a 
father  to  his  child.  I  wondered  what  form  ancestor- 
worship  took  in  her  mind.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
ancestor  curse-ship  would  be  more  appropriate. 

Within  ill-lighted  hovels  sat  circles  of  men  and 
women— doing  apparently  nothing.  There  was  hardly 
any  evidence  of  utensils  in  which  they  could  prepare 
what  meals  they  get  to  eat.  Yet  even  here  custom  was 
.so  firm  that,  dirty  and  bare  as  the  mats  and  huts  might 
be,  gcta  (clogs)  were  left  outside,  as  in  every  other  house- 
hold in  Japan.  They  lived  next  to  nature,  but  with 
instincts  of  cleanliness  like  those  of  the  cat. 

Eight  thousand  people  here  limited  the  usefulness  of 
the  word  "live."  These  were  in  the  very  pit  of  the 
slums.  Round  and  about  and  scattered  over  the  four 


WHEN  THE  LEAVES  HAVE  FALLEN  DAIKON   (RADISIIJ   ARE  HUNG  OUT  TO  DRY 


Tlll.KK    STII.I.    IS    NO    SKWKKAf.K    SYSTKM    IN    AI.I,    JAPAN 


TOKYO  TUNNEL  SLUMS  335 

corners  of  the  city  will  be  found  similar  conditions  of 
poverty.  Kyoto,  strangely  enough,  presents  the  worst 
situation  in  Japan,  though  in  details  nothing  could  be 
worse  than  that  in  Shinkawa,  Kobe. 

Tokyo  slums  are  not  less  degraded  than  those  of  either 
Kobe  or  Kyoto,  but  possess  a  feature  which  makes  of 
them  a  source  of  greater  danger.  They  are  situated  on 
land  periodically  washed  by  the  tides.  Looking  at  a 
map  of  the  city,  one  would  notice  that  the  region  along 
the  bay  has  a  considerable  number  of  watered  spaces, 
obviously  unreclaimed  shoreland.  The  rest  of  the 
region,  though  built  upon,  is  as  subject  to  the  tides  as  the 
shore.  There  is  no  sewerage.  Consequently,  all  the 
refuse  which  gathers,  waiting  for  some  official  honorable 
cleaning-day  to  cause  its  removal,  is  inundated  and 
spread  out  beneath  the  foundations  of  the  slum  quarters, 
where  it  festers  and  rots  with  time. 

In  these  slums  is  a  feature  unique  even  for  a  country 
as  profuse  in  oddities  as  Japan.  It  is  known  as  the 
Tunnel  Slums,  rows  of  houses,  each  containing  from 
twelve  to  twenty  compartments  arranged  like  a  Pullman 
sleeper,  standing  back  to  back.  Each  compartment  has 
three  mats  on  which  families  of  from  five  to  six  persons 
"dwell."  As  each  mat  in  Japan  measures  exactly  three 
feet  by  six,  there  is  absolutely  no  privacy  whatever  for 
the  individual  members  of  the  family,  and  inasmuch  as 
these  compartments  open  into  one  another,  there  is  none 
between  neighbors.  At  the  end  of  these  dark  hallways 
are  the  communal  kitchens  and  the  privies.  There 
is  a  space  of  only  eighteen  inches  between  these  tunnels, 
and  in  consequence  the  light  and  air  are  negligible. 

Such,  briefly,  is  the  condition  obtaining  amid  the  poor 
of  Japan.  As  one  of  the  families  among  the  nations  of 

the  world,  we  cannot  be  indifferent  to  the  conditions 
22 


336  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

there.  Infatuated  westerners  have  been  too  indulgent 
in  their  praise  of  Japan,  praise  frequently  as  unde- 
served as  the  statement  quoted  at  the  beginning  of  this 
study.  Neither  will  harsh  criticism  do,  for  no  people 
in  the  world  are  more  sensitive  than  the  Japanese. 
Japan  needs  social  workers  to  go  among  her  people  and 
teach  them  modern  methods  of  national  housekeeping. 
Missionaries  are  too  specialized.  Japan  has  nationalized 
railroads  and  subsidized  steamship  companies,  but 
mention  of  nationalized  hospitals  and  sewerage  is  still 
regarded  as  Utopian.  The  housing  problem  is  a  serious 
one.  Japan  needs  better  houses,  but  the  substitution  of 
our  type  for  hers  would  only  intensify  the  evil,  for  with 
such  a  change  would  have  to  come  instruction  in  usage. 
Japanese  in  foreign-style  houses  would  soon  succumb  to 
tuberculosis,  a  disease  to  which  they  are  even  now  a 
prey.  In  the  present  chaotic  state  of  the  Japanese 
worker's  mind  and  the  evils  resulting  from  having  bor- 
rowed wholesale  western  industrialism,  Japan  needs 
guidance  in  welfare  work,  in  removing  conditions  which 
make  for  cholera,  plague,  and  pestilence,  and  in  the 
general  eradication  of  social  ills. 

As  I  wandered  through  the  filth  and  squalor  which  are 
dignified  by  the  word  "slum,"  I  thought  that  Buddha, 
as  he  revels  in  the  sweetness  of  non-existence,  must 
occasionally  experience  a  pang  of  disappointment;  for, 
after  two  thousand  years  of  effort,  his  followers  are  still 
beset  with  the  same  evils  as  on  the  day  he  first  went  out 
into  the  world  to  see  for  himself.  Yet  as  I  emerged 
from  that  depressing  environment  I  seemed  to  see  the 
cleanliness,  orderliness,  and  healthfulness  of  the  ordinary 
life  with  wonder  and  surprise.  By  contrast,  the  general 
wretchedness  in  Japan  seemed  ideal. 


XXIII 

FIVE    HOURS    IN    PRISON 

LAY  that  night,  snug  in  my  bed,  with 
howling  without  against  the  heavy  burden  of 
cold  which  had  suddenly  been  thrust  upon 
him,  trying  to  imagine  what  the  morning's 
experience  would  be  like.  I  had  received 
permission  to  visit  the  Kobe  prison  and  was  to  present 
myself  at  nine  o'clock.  I  took  my  time,  leisurely  pro- 
longed the  pleasure  of  bed  under  the  pretense  of  studying 
Japanese,  had  the  servant  light  my  oil-heater,  bring  me 
hot  water,  prepare  a  warm  breakfast,  even  warm  my 
shoes,  which  in  a  Japanese  house  are  treated  as  though 
something  vile.  I  shivered  as  the  first  real  blast  of  one 
of  the  coldest  winds  of  that  winter  swept  over  me  at  the 
door.  Then  I  ran  hastily  down  the  hill  toward  the 
street-car  and  made  my  way  inside,  a  thing  which 
only  such  a  cold  day  could  induce  me  to  do.  The  cold 
notwithstanding,  it  was  as  clear  a  day  as  could  be 
desired.  At  the  other  end  of  Kobe  I  got  into  an  open 
kuruma  to  convey  me  to  Kikusui-cho,  ni-chome,  where 
the  kangokusho  (penitentiary)  is  located.  Still  in  good 
spirits,  still  unable  to  foresee  just  what  would  be  my 
experience,  I  watched  the  rickshaw-man  as  he  laid 
aside  his  coat  to  be  able  to  run  the  more  freely  and  to 
be  more  warm,  and  half  wished  I  myself  could  run,  for 
the  cold  was  nipping  at  my  hands  and  ears  and  feet 
unmercifully.  We  crossed  two  bridges  over  the  Mina- 
togawa.  Pat,  pat,  pat  went  the  runner's  feet,  and  the 
sound  of  his  bell  sent  people,  huddling  within  their 


338  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

wraps,  scurrying  out  of  the  way.  "Is  not  the  wind 
enough  to  evade  at  one  time?"  they  seemed  to  protest. 
The  rickshaw-man  turned  to  the  left,  and  soon  we  were 
at  the  corner  of  a  high  brick  wall  which  was  as  devoid 
of  curve  or  grace  as  straight  lines  could  possibly  be. 
It  seemed  as  though  the  Japanese  had  exhausted  nearly 
all  loftiness  of  structure  in  the  making  of  their  temples 
and  what  was  left  was  put  into  their  habitations,  so  that 
in  all  the  world  there  was  no  more  freedom  of  line  left 
with  which  to  soften  the  confines  of  the  wretched. 

A  few  children  and  women  with  babies  stood  at  the 
gate,  basking  in  the  sun.  As  I  stepped  out  of  the 
rickshaw  one  of  the  wide  doors  swung  open  from  within 
and  I  was  admitted  with  a  salute  and  a  smile  as  though 
my  coming  had  been  expected.  From  the  office  building 
came  a  Japanese  who  greeted  me  cordially  and  imme- 
diately ushered  me  into  the  waiting-room  above,  where 
I  was  announced  to  the  governor.  A  tiny  little  fellow 
of  about  ten — the  errand  boy — brought  some  tea 
forthwith  and  the  "investigation"  began. 

As  the  sun  shone  brightly  into  the  office,  I  half  re- 
gretted all  this  cordiality.  I  wished  I  could  come  un- 
noticed and  get  some  sense  of  what  real  prison  life  is. 
But  beggars  must  not  be  choosers,  and  when  they  are 
treated  like  princes  it  were  contemptible  to  complain. 

The  institution  I  had  come  to  inspect  is  over  thirty 
years  old — one  of  the  first  to  have  been  established 
after  the  Restoration.  At  the  time  of  my  visit  (Novem- 
ber, 1918)  there  were  thirteen  hundred  prisoners  incar- 
cerated. The  governor  felt  apologetic  because  of  the 
inadequacy  of  the  equipment  in  the  way  of  buildings, 
and  as  though  to  counteract  any  bad  impressions  he 
first  showed  me  pictures  of  the  new  structure  attached 
to  the  kencho  (court-house)  and  the  larger  one  in  Tokyo. 
These  looked  like  model  prisons.  Then  the  governor 
himself  set  out  to  show  me  about  the  prison. 


IRON  vs.  WOOD  339 

Impressions  are  dangerous  things.  One  may  be  either 
unduly  elated  or  unduly  severe.  But  if  impressions  are 
of  real  worth,  they  indicate  the  general  state  without 
falling  into  either  of  these  extremes.  My  impressions 
were  that  on  the  whole  the  atmosphere  of  this  prison 
and  that  at  Himeji  (which  I  visited  subsequently)  was 
one  of  greater  leniency  than  obtains  in  western  jails. 
First  of  all,  wood  is  the  predominant  material  in  use, 
and  wood  is  much  more  humane  than  iron.  What 
makes  a  western  prison  sound  so  hard  is  the  clanking  of 
keys  and  the  sight  of  iron  gates  and  iron  bars.  Here, 
though  gates  were  in  abundance,  they  were  either  of 
wood  or  of  wire,  and  the  locking  and  unlocking  were  not 
so  noticeable.  In  a  sense,  one  wonders  what  children  are 
here  confined  as  to  be  unable  to  get  some  way  of  ripping 
out  this  wood  which  obstructs  their  freedom.  Yet  the 
governor  assured  me  that  to  his  knowledge  but  one 
prisoner  has  escaped,  and  that  some  twenty  years  ago. 
However,  that  very  year  a  Japanese  "Jack  the  Ripper" 
made  his  get-away  and  was  for  a  time  the  terror  of  all 
women. 

The  prison  is  divided  according  to  the  length  of  the 
term  being  served.  First  we  visited  the  ward  for 
juvenile  offenders.  These  are  from  eighteen  to  twenty 
years  of  age.  If  taken  younger  than  that  they  are  sent 
to  the  Himeji  branch.  One  little  fellow,  half  frightened 
and  half  excited  at  my  sudden  appearance,  crouched  in 
the  shadows  of  his  cagelike  cell. 

All  cells  are  on  the  open.  Long  cages  made  of  posts 
four  or  five  inches  square,  set  two  inches  apart,  stand 
within  the  prison  walls.  The  cell  is  about  twelve  feet 
high,  its  floor  about  two  feet  above  the  ground.  The 
posts  are  strung  together  by  inconspicuous  iron  rods. 
Boarding  about  six  inches  thick  separates  the  cages. 
More  recently  these  cages  have  been  partially  inclosed 
by  glass  sheds.  The  governor  explained  that  because 


340  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

of  the  exorbitant  price  of  glass,  paper  was  resorted  to  on 
the  western  side.  But  for  this  shield,  the  wind  and  rain 
and  sun  could  beat  unmercifully  into  the  cages. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  light  and  air,  these  must 
certainly  be  more  cheerful  than  stone  walls  and  narrow 
apertures,  but  from  that  of  comfort  on  just  such  a  day 
as  fate  brought  me  there  the  airiness  was  rather  un- 
fortunately over-emphasized.  It  seemed  to  me,  as  I 
peeped  into  these  giant  cages,  that  the  sun  was  never  so 
benign  and  never  a  greater  blessing.  Had  it  been  a  dull, 
rainy  morning,  the  impression  I  should  have  carried 
away  would  have  been  less  commendable.  I  don't 
know  whether  I  should  have  had  the  heart  to  look  inside 
or  to  wander  about  even  with  so  honorable  a  guide  and 
one  so  pleasant  and  kindly.  For  it  must  further  be 
remembered  that  to  each  prisoner,  open  as  is  his  cell, 
only  one  quilt  is  allotted,  though  three  or  more  men  are 
generally  confined  in  a  single  cell.  For  moral  and 
other  reasons,  two  prisoners  are  never  left  alone,  the 
third  being  counted  upon  as  factor  against  "company" 
or  collusion.  Food  is  passed  in  between  the  posts,  and 
there,  day  after  day,  the  object  to  be  reformed  broods 
over  his  misfortunes,  never  permitted  to  stretch  his 
legs,  except  on  order  or  for  exercise,  always  sitting  upon 
his  knees  twirling  straw  gcta  strings  to  comfort  the  feet 
of  his  brethren  unconfined.  About  the  only  occupation 
the  authorities  can  find  for  them  is  to  twirl  these  geta 
strings. 

Strange  bits  of  innovation,  almost  humorous,  suggest 
the  slow  progress  prison  reform  would  make  were  it 
seriously  considered.  To  facilitate  the  serving  of  food, 
quarter-inch  extensions  have  been  cut  into  two  of  the 
pillars  of  each  cell.  Owing  to  the  possible  danger  of  a 
break  for  freedom  when  washing  at  the  open  troughs 
which  are  fed  by  the  tiniest  little  baby  faucets  I  have 
ever  seen,  the  governor  said  he  planned  to  bring  the 


AIR  vs.  COLD  341 

troughs  into  the  narrow  passageways  which  separate 
the  cells  from  their  outer  sheds.  He  has  had  wooden 
latticed  sliding-doors  placed  across  the  opening  which 
admits  one  to  the  prisons,  an  innovation  which,  it 
seemed  to  me,  would  stand  about  two  minutes  against 
the  pressure  of  a  healthy  man.  But  then  that  is  hardly 
necessary  to  guard  against.  Another  innovation  was 
the  waiting-rooms,  which  looked  like  a  series  of  American 
telephone  booths.  In  these  prisoners  have  to  wait  for 
examination. 

The  chapel  was  one  of  the  first  places  I  was  taken  to. 
Here  the  prisoners  gather  at  stated  times  to  receive 
instruction  from  Buddhist  priests.  A  considerable 
library  on  religion,  ethics,  and  some  practical  subjects 
is  at  their  disposal,  and  they  also  have  a  special  in- 
structor, who  at  the  time  looked  as  though  he  were 
afraid  of  being  examined.  These  clericals  have  abstracts 
made  for  them  of  each  prisoner's  record,  which  serve 
to  guide  them  in  the  kind  of  instruction  they  should 
dish  out. 

A  worse  life  than  that  of  the  prisoners  is  that  of  the 
guards,  who  are  stationed  in  open  boxes  at  all  the  four 
corners  of  the  prison-yard.  Though  we  appeared  fully 
a  block  away,  each  one  saluted  the  governor  with  a 
gusto  needing  no  field-glasses  to  be  made  noticeable. 

Thus  we  went  from  building  to  building,  or  rather  from 
cell-cage  to  cage-cell,  all  virtually  open  to  the  cold  and 
wind.  As  we  emerged  from  behind  one  wing,  we  were 
met  by  a  guard  and  half  a  dozen  prisoners.  They 
saluted  and  disappeared  round  the  corner  with  the  wind. 
At  another  place  prisoners  were  drawing  water,  and 
their  dirty-brown  uniforms  gave  one  anything  but  a 
"grandmotherly  feeling  of  comfort  and  security"  from 
cold. 

We  then  passed  the  hospital.  Peering  in  through  a 
glass  window  about  the  size  of  a  photographic  quarter- 


342  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

plate,  I  saw  a  man's  head,  but  the  body  was  beneath  a 
pile  of  futon  (quilts).  He  was  reading  a  Bible.  He 
noticed  me,  but  turned  his  head  away  as  though  in 
hiding.  He  was  a  white  man.  I  asked  the  governor 
if  he  would  permit  me  to  speak  to  this  man,  who,  I 
learned,  was  an  American  just  sentenced  to  a  year's 
imprisonment  for  embezzlement.  My  request  was 
granted  and  we  returned.  The  officer  opened  the  outer 
cell  and  then  unlocked  the  wooden  door  of  that  in  which 
the  man  lay.  He  greeted  me  eagerly  and  asked  me 
two  favors:  one  that  I  never  mention  his  name  to  any 
one  in  America,  and  the  other  that  I  send  him  a  mis- 
sionary or  a  priest.  Then  he  broke  into  tears.  It  was 
his  first  time.  He  had  arrived  at  Nagasaki,  and  then, 
"You  know  what  a  man  will  do  when  under  the  influence 
of  drink,"  he  said.  The  governor  said  he  would  permit 
him  to  see  a  priest  and  to  read  anything  I  would  send 
him,  and  we  went  on. 

Our  next  turn  was  into  the  workshops.  These  are 
indeed  elementary,  if  as  much.  The  majority  of  pris- 
oners are  at  work  making  geta  (clogs)  and  geto-strings. 
The  moment  we  entered  the  officer  in  charge  emitted  a 
yell  which  brought  every  one  to  immediate  attention. 
They  remained  on  their  knees,  heads  bowed,  and  the 
governor  saluted.  Then  the  officer  stepped  before  the 
governor  and  saluted  us.  We  saluted  in  turn.  The 
prisoners  all  sat  in  long  rows  upon  round,  thick  straw 
mats.  There  was  only  the  bare  earth  beneath  the  mats. 

In  the  other  workshops  some  weaving  is  done,  some 
basket-work,  some  leather  bags  manufactured  for  the 
post-office,  and  in  a  small  foundry  a  new  kind  of 
handcuff,  invented  by  the  governor,  is  made.  Con- 
tract labor  obtains,  but  it  seems  there  would  hardly  be 
enough  of  it  to  make  it  worth  the  while  of  any  manu- 
facturer. The  prison  equipment  is  quite  insufficient. 
Japan  is  still  unconscious  of  the  value  of  human  energy, 


PROS  AND  CONS  343 

and  can  think  of  no  other  way  of  employing  it  than  by 
keeping  these  men  at  work  twirling  geta-strings.  Again 
and  again  the  interpreter  regretted  that  they  had  no 
other  kind  of  work  for  the  prisoners  to  do. 

At  one  cell  the  governor  made  some  remark  to  a 
prisoner  which  set  him  bowing  so  profusely  that  I  asked 
for  the  reason.  He  was  to  be  dismissed  the  following 
day,  I  was  told,  having  served  his  term  of  three  years 
and  fojir  months.  Therefore  he  was  given  greater 
freedom,  and  before  him,  on  a  little  table,  were  some 
books  from  which  he  was  reading. 

There  is  much  more  to  prison  life  in  Japan  than  this. 
For  instance,  in  the  kitchen  there  was  really  something 
modern — an  enormous  furnace  and  tremendous  iron 
kettles  in  which  the  rice  is  steamed.  For  the  men 
eat.  At  noon  they  receive  only  rice  and  millet;  at 
night  there  is  a  little  brownish  paste  and  some  greens 
besides. 

Though  I  saw  no  women  about,  there  is,  within  the 
same  compound,  a  women's  ward.  At  the  time  about 
ninety  women  were  imprisoned.  No  contact  with  the 
male  prisoners  is,  however,  permitted  under  any  circum- 
stances. They  do  not  even  see  one  another.  The  seg- 
regation of  youths  is  a  departure  but  recently  instituted, 
and  these,  too,  are  now  permitted  no  intercourse  with 
confirmed  criminals 

I  returned  to  the  outer  world  with  the  same  feeling  of 
amazement  at  the  orderliness  of  life  and  at  its  compara- 
tive cleanliness  and  sweetness  as  after  my  visit  to  the 
slums.  The  dreariness  and  squalor  which  are  found  in 
such  places  in  Japan  are  so  much  more  devoid  of  sem- 
blance of  humanity  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world. 
The  poor  in  the  West  have  little  enough  to  console  them ; 
in  Japan  they  seem  to  show  their  ribs,  metaphorically 
speaking,  through  their  garments.  There  is  such 
utter  absence  of  creature  comfort.  To  a  westerner  the 


344  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

sight  of  bare  feet  in  winter  is  more  painful  than  solitary 
confinement.  The  portion  of  rice  and  the  speck  of 
pickled  vegetable,  however  much  it  may  please  the 
native,  seems  so  much  more  meager  than  the  loaves  of 
bread  which  seemed  rather  inviting  in  the  New  Zealand 
prisons  I  visited.  A  floor,  no  matter  how  bare,  even 
cold  concrete,  bespeaks  a  certain  amount  of  care  which, 
in  our  eyes,  goes  a  good  deal  toward  seeming  comfort. 
Ta}ce  the  hospital,  for  instance.  There  are  two  sep- 
arate structures  for  the  sick — one  for  contagious  cases. 
In  this  a  prisoner  in  an  advanced  stage  of  consumption 
lay  beneath  a  mountain  of  quilts  upon  a  board-bottomed 
bed.  The  doctor  prescribes  the  number  of  quilts  he 
should  be  given,  and  this  one  had  several,  but  a  person 
in  such  a  condition  can  hardly  be  expected  to  keep  warm, 
however  many  covers  he  be  given.  Yet  there  was  no 
heat  whatever  in  the  room,  not  even  a  charcoal  brazier. 
None  of  the  wards  had  heat.  The  cheerlessness  alone 
would  kill  a  man,  it  seems.  To  the  Japanese,  accus- 
tomed to  cold  houses,  this  may  not  appear  to  be  cruel. 
So  perhaps  the  western  observer  is  disqualified  for  im- 
partial judgment  in  eastern  ways.  But  there  must  be 
a  standard  which  is  better. 

In  truth,  standards  are  already  being  set  in  Japan. 
Going  from  one  prison  to  another  gives  one  a  basis  of 
measurement.  The  prison  at  Himeji,  thirty  miles  from 
Kobe,  is  a  branch  of  that  at  Kobe.  It  is  located  in  the 
open  country  skirting  the  town.  Its  walls  have  none  of 
the  shut-in  effect  of  most  prisons,  for  the  hills  to  the  rear 
give  it  a  restful  appearance  of  rural  freshness.  The 
structures  are  all  of  wood,  but  are  real  cells,  not  cages. 
Three  long  buildings  running  off  from  a  common  center, 
like  so  many  spokes,  permit  the  attendant  to  watch 
them  all  at  once. 

The  prison  is  also  more  industrialized  than  that  at 
Kobe.  Everywhere  looms  were  clattering  away  on 


HIMEJI   PRISON  345 

cotton  flannels,  knitting-machines  making  socks — all 
the  cheaper  grades  of  machine-work  being  done  on  con- 
tract prison  labor.  Manufacturers  pay  by  piece-work, 
the  rates  of  which  vary  as  follows:  cabinet-makers  may 
earn  17  cents  a  day;  cotton-flannel  workers,  9  cents; 
knitters  of  cotton  stockings,  6  cents;  paper-hatmakers, 
3  cents.  They  make  wooden  clogs,  mats,  straw  rope, 
spools,  sandals,  matches,  shoes,  wicker  baskets,  and  do 
most  of  the  work  for  the  government.  In  winter  they 
work  ten  hours,  and  in  summer  twelve.  According  to 
the  old  rule,  a  portion  of  the  wages  was  paid  to  them 
regardless  of  conduct  or  skill;  now  it  is  labeled  "reward " 
and  is  given  on  a  basis  of  both  conduct  and  skill,  and  a 
portion  is  put  to  the  credit  of  the  prisoner  against  his 
leaving.  All  materials  are  supplied  by  the  contractors, 
which  must  be  furnished  whether  the  market  demands  it 
or  not.  Machinery  is  also  installed  by  the  contractor, 
who  is  very  eager  for  prison  labor. 

Accused  convicts  under  detention,  and  prisoners 
under  confinement  or  political  offenders,  need  not  work. 
Those  sentenced  without  labor  can  work  if  they  so  wish. 
They  receive  from  40  to  70  per  cent  of  their  earnings, 
according  to  conduct. 

Relatives  and  friends  may  visit  prisoners  once  in  two 
months.  Prisoners  may  write  letters  once  in  two 
months.  Those  receiving  a  reward  badge  for  good 
conduct  may  receive  callers  and  write  letters  once  every 
month.  Corporal  punishment  is  not  allowed,  though 
this  is  not  a  guarantee  against  its  infliction,  as  may  be 
judged  by  some  of  the  revelations  made  of  methods  in 
vogue  in  Korea.  The  strait-jacket,  reduction  in  quan- 
tity of  food,  solitary  confinement  in  not  completely 
dark  cells,  are  extreme  forms  of  punishment.  Under 
hard  labor  comes  carpentry,  stone  masonry,  and  breaking 
stone.  Prisoners  generally  build  the  prisons,  which 
nowadays  are  made  of  brick.  The  more  recent  prisons 


346  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

are  built  entirely  after  western  models,  the  Belgian 
taking  precedence.  The  new  detention  prison  attached 
to  the  court-house  in  Kobe  is  quite  up-to-date. 

The  total  number  of  prisoners  accused  and  sentenced 
in  Japan  by  the  end  of  March,  1919,  was  60,039,  showing 
an  increase  of  609  as  compared  with  the  previous  month. 
At  Himeji,  at  the  time,  there  were  518  adult  prisoners, 
among  whom  were  76  women.  Owing  to  the  increased 
difficulty  of  earning  a  necessary  wage  in  face  of  the 
advance  in  prices,  crime  increased.  But  strikes  being 
in  the  category  of  crime  in  Japan,  the  crowding  of 
prisons  must  be  tremendous.  When  I  visited  the  new 
detention  prison  in  Kobe  there  were  375  rice-rioters 
awaiting  trial.  As  a  consequence,  there  were  as  many 
as  six  and  twelve  in  a  cell.  The  Himeji  prison  was 
almost  full,  too. 

As  we  emerged  from  inspection,  a  muffled  tread  of 
feet  was  heard  and  a  gang  of  boys  shuffled  into  view. 
Forty  or  fifty  young  offenders  in  dirty  blue  uniforms — 
wadded  kimonos  reaching  to  the  knees — and  straw 
sandals  on  their  bare  feet,  came  past  in  steps  anything 
but  lightsome  and  free.  They  were  bound  for  school. 
No  straggling  in  late  in  this  small  world.  Yet  school 
here  doubtless  affords  the  most  joyous  moments  of  a 
weary  life,  for  all  day  long  they  live  according  to  dis- 
cipline which  warps  what  smoothness  their  life  affords. 
Two  hours  of  the  day  they  attend  class  within  a  building 
like  an  old  country  schoolhouse.  Forty  wooden  desks 
and  benches  as  rough  and  ugly  as  possible  were  all  the 
furniture,  and  a  curtain  separating  the  two  classes. 
On  one  side  stood  a  shriveled  little  old  man  who  looked 
sorely  in  need  of  an  education  himself;  on  the  other,  a 
vigorous  old  patriarch  with  long  beard  and  big  eye- 
glasses. Both  of  them  proceeded  lamely  to  "educate" 
their  charges.  The  one  on  our  left,  wrinkled,  hungry- 
looking,  talked  to  them  about  ethics.  Japanese  invari- 


DOES  MERCY  TEMPER  JUSTICE?          347 

ably  use  that  word  instead  of  good  conduct  or  behavior. 
They  are  constantly  drilling  loyalty,  emperor  worship, 
into  the  young,  and  these  fellows  sat  listening,  with  not 
a  single  example  of  real  morality  about  them.  There 
were  118  of  them  in  the  prison.  They  work,  drill,  go 
to  school,  drill,  and  work — and  sleep.  Physically  they 
did  not  appear  to  be  too  robust ;  their  faces  showed  that 
their  spirit  was  broken,  and  according  to  statistics  most 
of  them  return  some  time  after  their  release  for  another 
course. 

I  am  still  in  a  quandary  as  to  the  purpose  of  a  certain 
institution  for  juvenile  criminals  supported  by  a  Kyoto 
millionaire.  The  gentleman  readily  enough  gave  me 
what  information  I  asked  for — as  to  the  kind  of  home 
and  kinds  of  criminals  he  takes  in.  It  has  been  in 
existence  since  1913  and  has  seen  ninety-five  inmates 
come  and  go  after  periods  of  from  one  night  to  four  years. 
The  ages  of  these  guests  likewise  vary  from  ten  to  forty- 
six  years.  Whether  they  are  sent  there  by  the  court  or 
not  I  could  not  ascertain.  The  crimes  they  committed 
were  recorded  as  follows:  theft,  25;  embezzlement,  7; 
default,  4 ;  disturbance,  i ;  receiving  stolen  goods,  i ; 
forgery,  i ;  incendiarism,  i ;  petty  larceny,  46 ;  prison 
sentence  postponed  on  probation,  i ;  awaiting  court 
order,  9.  According  to  these  records,  5  were  reformed, 
5  were  being  reformed,  5  were  still  kept  watch  over,  5 
indirectly  cared  for,  2  were  earning  money  independently, 
4  were  turned  over  to  another  reformatory,  12  went 
home  after  receiving  traveling  expenses,  32  were  de- 
livered over  to  their  relatives,  29  escaped,  and  2  died. 
The  noteworthy  thing  is  that  of  sending  delinquents 
home  to  their  relations.  So  ingrained  is  the  family 
system  that  upon  the  request  of  parents  or  relatives  a 
third  of  them  were  released.  Throughout  this  record 
such  notes  were  made:  "Dismissed  by  instructions  of 
his  father";  "Asked  to  be  dismissed";  "Asked  to  return 


348  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

to  uncle's  house";  "Elder  brothers  house,  account  of 
illness";  "Went  home  next  day — very  dangerous  man"; 
"No  hope  of  repentance";  "Father  took  him  back"; 
' '  Brother  asked  to  have  him  sent  back ' ' ;  etc.  A  number 
escaped  within  a  day  or  so,  while  many  secured  positions. 
But  this  humane  way  of  handling  criminals  leaves  one 
somewhat  in  doubt.  Why  bother  with  them  at  all? 
No  doubt  it  accounts  for  much  of  the  crime  prevalent  in 
the  country. 

On  this  last  thought  it  might  be  said  that  the  attitude 
of  courts  to  crime  in  Japan  wavers  between  a  certain 
vague  indulgence  and  extreme  cruelty.  The  governor 
of  Kobe  prison  remarked  that  in  America  men  are  sen- 
tenced to  terms  of  more  than  thirty-five  years,  while  in 
Japan  no  sentence  is  for  more  than  twenty — or  for  life 
imprisonment.  Reports  of  leniency  in  the  case  of  crim- 
inals who  have  "repented"  are  frequent,  and  confessed 
embezzlers '  have  had  their  sentences  stayed  for  years, 
virtually  defeating  the  ends  sought  in  having  them 
brought  to  trial,  simply  on  their  word  of  honor.  This 
has  happened  once  in  the  case  of  a  man  who  stole  a 
thousand  dollars  from  a  friend  of  mine  in  Kobe — a 
foreigner.  Partiality  where  natives  are  concerned  against 
foreigners  is  not  uncommon. 

The  severity  with  which  the  rice-rioters  were  treated 
shows  to  what  extremes  the  judiciary  can  go,  as  does, 
for  instance,  the  trials  of  Korean  Christians.  Yet  ac- 
cused are  protected  from  public  scrutiny  by  allowing 
them  to  wear  wicker  baskets  over  their  heads  down  to 
their  shoulders  when  passing  from  their  cells  to  the 
court.  Bail  is  rarely  granted.  A  court  scene  is  quaint 
indeed  in  the  eyes  of  the  westerner.  Cases  are  tried 
without  juries  before  three  judges,  each  in  a  black  gown 
and  stiff -paper,  black-lacquered  "overseas"  cap,  of  the 
Shinto  variety.  The  process  is  simple,  the  presiding 


AN  HONEST  JUDGE  349 

judge  alone  hearing  and  examining  the  witnesses  and 
the  accused,  all  questions  even  from  lawyers  going 
through  him  to  the  prisoner.  Holding  court  in  camera 
is  quite  common,  especially  in  cases  where  the  offense 
is  political.  Considering  that  in  olden  days  capital 
punishment  was  usually  the  reward  for  the  simplest 
crime,  one  would  feel  rather  uneasy  about  putting  one- 
self in  the  hands  of  three  individuals  with  such  prec- 
edents to  guide  them.  Until  the  coming  of  the  for- 
eigners and  during  the  Tokugawa  period  the  laws  were 
not  codified,  but  reliance  was  placed  on  the  humanity 
of  the  judges.  Since,  the  judicial  system  has  been 
modeled  after  the  German  system.  Japan  only  then 
secured  recognition  from  the  world  as  an  equal,  and 
extraterritoriality  was  abolished. 

An  interesting  story  was  recently  published  in  The 
Japan  Chronicle  (Kobe,  January  i,  1919),  a  translation 
from  the  Gokyo-Den  by  Ito  Chiyu,  a  popular  story-teller 
from  Tokyo.  It  gives  vivid  details  of  the  attack,  by 
a  fanatic  policeman  in  1891,  on  Nicholas  I,  when  as  the 
young  Czarevitch  he  was  touring  Japan.  He  was  at 
Otsu,  on  Lake  Biwa,  near  Kyoto.  The  policeman  had 
seen  the  young  Czarevitch  put  his  foot  upon  the  founda- 
tion of  a  monument  raised  to  commemorate  the  spot 
from  which  the  Meiji  Tenno,  Emperor  of  Japan,  had 
once  gazed  across  the  lake.  When,  a  little  later,  the 
young  monarch  passed  him,  the  policeman  pounced 
upon  him  with  his  sword  and  was  only  prevented 
from  killing  him  by  his  two  rickshaw-men  pullers. 
Fearing  the  wrath  of  the  Czar,  the  whole  of  Japanese 
officialdom  was  ready  to  have  the  policeman  executed 
with  only  the  semblance  of  a  trial.  The  Emperor  him- 
self went  down  to  Kyoto  to  call  upon  the  heir  to  the 
Russian  throne,  and  later  gave  a  veiled  hint  to  the  chief 
justice  that  execution  was  to  be  certain.  But  that  one 
man,  and  that  one  only,  remained  obdurate.  Judge 


350  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Kojima,  president  of  the  Supreme  Court,  refused  to 
have  the  judiciary  tampered  with  by  oligarchs  or 
politicians.  He  even  disregarded  the  wish  of  the  Em- 
peror. His  fellow- judges  were  ready  to  bow  the  knee 
before  the  Ministers  of  State.  But  he  refused.  It 
ended,  after  a  trial,  in  a  fist-fight  between  one  of  the 
Ministers,  Saigo,  and  Judge  Kojima,  both  rolling  on 
the  floor  of  the  Kyoto  railway  station.  But  Japan's 
judiciary  was  saved  from  political  dictation. 

Yet  Japan's  judicial  system,  according  to  foreign 
lawyers  and  editors  who  have  made  a  study  of  it,  has 
made  little  progress  from  the  point  of  view  of  modern 
law  and  procedure. 


WITH  ALL  ITS  MODERNISM,  JAPAN  STILL  HAS  TIME  FOR  SUCH  SLOW  METHODS 


AND   THERE    ARE    MEN    ENOUGH   TO   GIVE   THEIR   LIVES   TO   SUCH    TASKS 


XXIV 

CONFLICTING    SOCIAL    FORCES — I 

Labor  Rises 

[ERE  one  to  glance  down  a  complete  index 
to  daily  incidents  in  Japan,  it  would  soon 
be  evident  that  Japanese  are  as  given  to 
acts  of  virtue  or  violence  as  any  other  race. 
From  A  to  Z  it  would  read  like  a  cata- 
logue of  incidents  found  anywhere  else  in  the  world 
—forgery,  scandal,  suicide,  fires,  strikes,  marriages, 
divorces,  and  so  on.  The  foreigner  is  apt  to  forget  that 
when  the  Japanese  yawns  he  puts  his  hand  before  his 
mouth;  that  when  he  goes  visiting  he  puts  on  his  best 
top-skirt;  that  he  quarrels  when  he  is  crossed  and 
smiles  when  he  is  pleased.  We  complain  about  the  lack 
of  Americanization  on  the  part  of  the  Japanese  in 
America,  while  our  own  people  residing  in  Asia  seek  by 
foreign  schools  to  raise  as  great  a  wall  between  the  East 
and  the  West  by  the  preservation  of  their  own  customs 
and  ideals.  Socially,  the  Japanese  are  perhaps  more 
clannish,  but  that  is  because  they  are  more  simple. 
They  have  been  held  for  nearly  three  hundred  years  in 
fear  and  suspicion  of  one  another  by  the  most  peculiar 
system  of  government  ever  devised.  In  dealing  with 
the  nation,  no  matter  what  the  phase  considered,  this 
historical  fact  must  not  be  lost  sight  of. 

The  difficulties  standing  in  the  way  of  a  solution  of  the 
question  of  immigration,  for  instance,  are  admitted  to 

23 


352  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

be  economic  more  than  social.  But  to  one  who  has 
resided  in  Japan  any  length  of  time  the  racial  factor  is 
found  to  be  as  pressing.  Japan's  racial  traits  made  for 
her  isolation,  and  later  for  her  emergence.  And  to- 
day, in  the  evidence  of  a  bettering  of  her  social  condi- 
tions, one  can  see  the  possibilities  of  Japan  coming 
abreast  of  other  nations  politically. 

The  fame  of  Japan's  material  progress  has  been  widely 
advertised  and  considerably  exaggerated.  Acquaintance 
with  conditions  in  Kobe  and  Osaka  soon  proves  this. 
Kobe  in  the  last  two  years  alone  absorbed  the  greater 
part  of  Japan's  commercial  growth.  So  with  a  few 
industries  which  have  marked  time  with  enterprise 
elsewhere.  The  drift  is  toward  the  cities.  So  rapid  has 
this  movement  been  that  large  areas  in  and  about  them 
until  recently  garden  patches  have  become  sites  for 
homes.  But  the  conditions  have  in  no  case  been  ap- 
proximated by  any  remarkable  increase  in  efficiency. 
As  soon  as  the  trams  were  taken  over  by  the  munici- 
palities, the  fares  were  raised  and  their  efficiency  fell. 
The  crowding  is  tremendous,  and  to  relieve  the  cars 
they  removed  half  the  seats.  Three  or  four  cars  run 
close  together,  then  you  wait  twenty  minutes.  They 
break  down  fairly  regularly.  And  for  a  city  of  half  a 
million  and  over  there  are  only  seventy  cars.  But 
fares  are  constantly  increased  to  where  they  have  be- 
come two  cents  a  ride.  On  the  railroads  the  rates  have 
gone  up  40  per  cent.  Outward  changes  there  have  been 
many,  but  fundamentals  remain  little  modified. 

Politically  the  change  in  Japan  has  been  less  rapid. 
Democracy  is  in  the  making.  Imperialism  may  sup- 
press it  for  a  time,  but  Japan  is  undergoing  internal 
change  as  surely  as  it  has  external.  Its  rulers  cannot 
forever  stave  off  mutation.  Already  the  number  of 
strikes  and  riots  is  alarming  the  government.  They 
are  almost  insignificant  compared  with  those  of  Europe 


A   DELUGE  OF  STRIKES  353 

and  America,  but  they  make  up  for  lack  of  numbers  of 
laborers  involved  by  their  frequency. 

There  are  many  causes  for  the  deluge  of  strikes  which 
has  flooded  Japan  in  the  last  three  years.  First  of  all 
was  war  prosperity  with  the  consequent  drain  upon  the 
rural  population  by  industrial  recruiting  and  enormous 
increase  in  wealth  of  a  certain  few  individuals  in  favored 
districts.  Envy  of  the  riches  suddenly  acquired  by 
steamship  men,  manufacturers,  and  exporters,  desig- 
nated nankin  (mushroom  millionaires),  and  the  absence, 
on  the  part  of  the  government,  of  any  experience  or 
inclination  for  handling  the  situation,  added  to  the 
predicament. 

Japanese  labor,  for  its  own  part,  does  not  as  yet  know 
definitely  what  it  is  after.  It  demands  bonuses  and 
parties  instead  of  a  constructive  share  in  industrial 
management.  Consequently,  without  the  shadow  of  a 
program,  it  is  often  as  violent  as  it  is  innocent.  Flare- 
ups  have  always  been  ephemeral.  When  a  riot  occurs, 
the  police  and  soldiers  are  immediately  called  out  to 
quell  it.  In  Japan,  the  police  take  it  upon  themselves 
to  act  as  mediators,  by  no  means  a  bad  proposition,  for 
they  occasionally  hit  upon  admirable  compromises. 
But  even  Japanese  loyalty  has  its  bounds,  and  both 
police  and  troops  have  been  met  with  defiance. 

The  trouble  is  not  always  with  either  the  police  or 
employers.  At  one  place  the  workers  objected  to  cer- 
tain bad  characters  among  themselves.  They  wanted 
them  removed  from  their  midst.  They  also  complained 
that  the  company's  doctors  were  not  kind  in  their 
treatment  of  them.  The  physicians  must  have  insisted 
on  something  akin  to  scientific  practice  or  isolation  of 
contagious  cases,  or  otherwise  interfered  with  the  super- 
stitions of  the  people.  At  a  certain  colliery  the  workers 
of  No.  i  shaft  destroyed  shaft  No.  2,  and  forthwith  the 
workers  of  No.  2  destroyed  No.  i  shaft  in  revenge.  At 


354  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

a  copper-mine  in  Niigata  Prefecture  the  miners  raided 
the  stores  and  smashed  things,  because  they  claimed 
the  headman  of  the  stores  was  selling  them  rotten  rice. 
A  ship  was  to  be  launched  and  the  owners  thought  they 
would  have  a  little  spree  in  celebration.  The  workers 
were,  of  course,  not  included.  They  complained  that 
in  view  of  their  straitened  circumstances  it  was  not 
nice  of  the  owners  to  display  their  profits.  The  garden- 
party  was  indefinitely  postponed,  and  the  police  were 
called  in  to  keep  the  workers  under  control.  At  the 
christening  of  another  vessel  a  number  of  coolies  came 
upon  the  scene  with  daggers  and  distributed  their 
thrusts  indiscriminately  among  workers  and  celebrants. 

One  hundred  and  fifty  girls  struck  because  the  fore- 
man had  distributed  the  New  Year  bonus,  declared  upon 
the  amalgamation  of  two  large  weaving-mills,  with  par- 
tiality. They  gathered  in  the  public  parks  to  discuss 
their  grievances  and  the  steps  they  should  take  to  protect 
their  interests.  A  similar  affair  occurred  at  a  mill 
employing  twelve  hundred  girls.  They  claimed  that  the 
foreman  had  taken  too  much  of  the  bonus  to  himself,  and, 
besides,  had  favored  the  girls  from  another  province. 
Workers  in  an  electric  concern  resumed  work  only  on 
condition  that  the  mediators  collect  an  additional  bonus 
of  a  hundred  thousand  yen  for  distribution  among  the 
former  employees  of  the  company.  An  Osaka  iron- 
works forbade  sa&e-drinking  while  at  the  works  and 
precipitated  a  strike  by  searching  the  men  and  looking 
into  their  little  aluminum  lunch-boxes  (measuring  about 
four  by  six  inches  by  one  inch) . 

In  most  of  the  cases  the  grievance  is  insufficient  pay. 
The  cost  of  living  shot  up  by  leaps  and  bounds  during 
the  war,  but  not  so  the  wages.  In  many  cases  the  em- 
ployers pleaded  they  had  just  given  a  10  or  20  per  cent 
increase,  but  the  men  demanded  another  30  or  40  per 
cent.  All  around  them  the  laborers  saw  fabulous  ac- 


CAUSES  OF  STRIKES  355 

cumulations  of  wealth  which  they  felt  they  had  a  right 
to  share.  Revelations  were  made  in  the  Diet  of  prof- 
iteering in  coal  to  the  effect  that  coal  was  being  sold 
for  $8.50  a  ton  instead  of  $3.50.  Even  at  the  latter 
price  the  operatives  would  have  realized  a  40-per-cent 
profit.  During  one  given  period  the  sale  was  from  four 
to  five  million  tons.  The  Kyushu  scandals  resulted. 

In  various  regions  strikes  have  occurred  because  the 
mine  operators  were  rice-profiteers.  Recently  there 
was  a  strike  in  Hyogo  Prefecture  copper-mine,  because 
the  operators  felt  that  inasmuch  as  copper  was  going 
down  in  price  they  were  justified  in  raising  the  price  of 
the  rice  they  sell  to  the  mining  community,  though  the 
men  had  examples  of  cheaper  rice  all  around  them. 

Japanese  are  about  as  patient  as  any  to  be  found 
anywhere,  but  even  in  Japan  there  is  a  last-straw  pos- 
sibility. Some  miners  in  a  gold  district  made  their 
appeal  for  increased  wages,  and  waited.  Then  they 
lost  patience  and  resorted  to  cudgels  and  shovels. 
They  used  these  strange  weapons  upon  the  residences  of 
the  officials. 

Sometimes  the  men  have  well-defined  grievances. 
For  instance,  the  employees  of  the  Osaka  Ironworks  pre- 
sented the  following  demands  to  their  firm:  (i)  improve- 
ment of  structural  defects  considered  dangerous  in  their 
present  condition;  (2)  relief  for  the  workers  and  their 
families  when  injured  or  killed  while  at  work;  (3)  short- 
ening of  working-hours;  and  (4)  distinction  between 
workers  on  piece-work  and  those  in  regular  employ,  the 
former  to  be  free  from  any  restrictions  regarding  meal- 
times and  hours  to  begin  work.  The  men  won  out  in 
the  first  two  demands,  but  not  in  the  others;  however, 
the  company  gave  way  in  its  opposition  to  the  presence 
of  the  workers'  wives  who  generally  bring  lunch  to  the 
men.  There  was  also  a  strike  of  sixteen  hundred  men 
at  a  colliery  because,  after  an  explosion  had  occurred, 


356  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

killing  a  dozen  men,  it  was  rumored  that  the  allowances 
given  the  bereaved  families  were  too  small.  At  the 
time  of  the  accident  the  management  had  announced 
an  increase  of  wages,  but  after  the  excitement  subsided 
the  promise  was  not  fulfilled.  Hence  the  raid  on  offices 
and  destruction  of  furniture. 

Five  hundred  were  dismissed  from  one  zinc-mine 
shortly  after  the  armistice.  This  caused  considerable 
disquietude,  but  it  was  announced  that  twenty  thousand 
yen  would  be  distributed  among  them,  and  the  trouble 
abated.  In  one  case  five  hundred  shipwrights  were 
dismissed  when  the  company  went  into  liquidation 
without  paying  them  their  wages,  causing  a  riot.  In 
this  case,  to  the  credit  of  the  police,  their  intervention 
on  behalf  of  the  workers  secured  justice.  Like  the  cases 
of  students  striking  because  of  dissatisfaction  with 
some  of  the  instructors,  so  five  hundred  workmen  went 
on  strike  at  the  Bingo  dockyards  because  they  didn't 
like  the  new  directors.  The  police  were  immediately 
sent  "to  induce"  the  strikers  to  resume  work. 

Most  of  the  strikes  have  been  for  increase  of  wages  to 
meet  the  increased  cost  of  living,  the  demands  ranging 
from  20  to  30  per  cent.  Some  mechanics  in  a  ship- 
yard were  earning  only  90  cents  a  day  and  asked  for 
an  increase  of  35  cents.  However,  it  must  not  be 
thought  that  the  workers,  disorganized  as  they  are, 
are  altogether  lacking  in  discipline  and  orderliness. 
The  fact  is  that  their  resentment  in  the  majority  of  cases 
is  due  to  disappointment.  They  regarded  their  em- 
ployers with  the  loyalty  of  serfs  and  found  them  narikin 
and  industrial  overlords. 

Here  in  America  strikes  are  usually  attributed  to 
the  agitation  of  foreigners,  but  in  Japan  there  is  no 
foreign  element  upon  whom  any  blame  can  be  placed. 
There  have  been  two  or  three  cases  of  Chinese  painters 
going  out  on  strike  against  their  exploiting  Chinese 


INDUSTRIES  AFFECTED  357 

contractors,  or  Japanese  and  Korean  laborers  coming 
into  collision.  But  Japan  does  not  encourage  immi- 
gration from  the  overpopulated  neighbor  empire,  and 
has  even  deported  several  groups.  So  that  she  has 
no  such  situation  to  face,  except  perhaps  in  that  all 
white  foreigners  in  Japan  set  the  natives  a  bad  example 
— for  invariably  a  foreign  clerk  in  an  office  receives 
three  and  four  times  as  much  pay  for  the  same  work 
as  does  a  native. 

Strikes  have  occurred  among  the  steel- workers,  glass- 
workers,  porcelain- workers,  masons,  spinners,  and  weav- 
ers, artificial-silk  factory- workers,  and  among  the  em- 
ployees of  most  of  the  industrial  enterprises.  Now 
the  strike  spirit  has  permeated  the  publishing  world. 
Recently  all  the  leading  Tokyo  papers  had  to  suspend 
publication.  Not  a  paper  was  published  from  August 
2d  to  August  7th.  But  so  far  government  under- 
takings have  not  been  affected  very  seriously.  There 
have  been  no  strikes  on  the  railways  or  steamers  (these 
utilities  being  owned  or  subsidized  by  the  government), 
because  generally  the  government  makes  up  in  medals 
and  badges  for  lack  of  pay.  Such  submission  is  primarily 
based  on  the  deep-rooted  fear  of  being  regarded  as  dis- 
loyal to  the  Emperor.  Strikes  will  take  place  on  the 
city  municipalized  street-cars,  but  not  on  the  railways. 
At  the  railway  workshops  at  Takatori,  near  Kobe,  the 
authorities  got  wind  of  disaffection,  and  immediately 
offered  to  divide  the  profits  resulting  from  any  increased 
efficiency  of  the  workers.  This  settled  the  matter  for  a 
time.  The  last  report  has  it  that  they  again  demanded 
increases.  Upon  denial,  the  workers  attacked  the  shops 
with  stones.  Over  a  third  of  the  men  left  their  jobs 
entirely. 

Yet  of  all  the  underpaid  workers  in  Japan,  those 
employed  by  the  government  are  the  most  wretched. 
A  man  in  charge  of  a  level-crossing  on  the  railway  was 


358  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

imprisoned  for  eight  months.  Because  of  his  neglect 
three  persons  were  killed  and  several  injured.  Yet  one 
of  the  blotches  on  the  whole  government  railway  system 
is  the  type  of  person  placed  to  protect  the  public. 
Decrepit  old  men  and  women  who  can  barely  see  and 
must  surely  be  hard  of  hearing,  the  sight  of  whom  makes 
one  want  to  give  them  a  square  meal,  stand  with  dirty 
rags  for  signals,  and  lower  the  guard  rails.  While  suc- 
cessful business  enterprises  were  luring  "English-speak- 
ing" post-office  clerks  away  by  offering  $30  and  $50  a 
month,  the  government  allowed  its  post-offices  to  fall 
into  a  shameful  state  of  disorganization  by  paying  as 
low  as  $6  a  month  in  wages.  In  Kobe  the  postmaster 
advertised  for  men  at  $9  a  month  and  got  five  applica- 
tions. At  Osaka  seven  hundred  telegraph  operators  had 
been  working  without  holiday,  owing  to  the  increase  in 
the  number  of  telegrams.  Two  hundred  and  eighty  quit 
work.  The  wages  ranged  from  23  to  45  cents  a  day, 
with  a  maximum  wage  of  $20  a  month  and  a  minimum 
of  $12.50.  The  work  was  so  hard — the  telegrams  in- 
creased from  1 20  to  600  and  700  per  man  per  day— 
that  within  one  month  seven  of  them  died  of  overwork. 
The  authorities  denied  that  a  strike  had  occurred,  but 
admitted  that  130  were  away  on  "account  of  illness." 
They  finally  reduced  the  hours  from  nine  and  a  half  to 
eight  per  day. 

The  government  is  by  no  means  quite  free  from  indus- 
trial difficulties.  The  strike  habit  is  growing.  The 
Department  of  Communications  has  felt  the  rumbling 
of  the  coming  change.  In  reorganizing  its  various  de- 
partments, it  appointed  some  young  experts  to  certain 
important  positions  and  thus  placed  them  over  men 
longer  in  the  service  and  higher  in  official  rank.  As  a 
consequence  there  was  much  rumor  and  considerable 
consternation  about  a  threatened  strike.  The  police 
didn't  intervene  here,  as  they  do  with  ordinary  mortals, 


TO  STRIKE  IS  UNLAWFUL  359 

and  the  matter  was  smoothed  over.  The  police  have 
grievances  of  their  own.  They  are  the  former  samurai 
of  Japan,  who  "never"  gave  thought  to  money.  At 
Shidzuoka,  118  miles  southwest  of  Tokyo,  a  few  po- 
licemen got  together  in  their  police-office  chambers 
and  lamented  with  one  another  over  their  hard  lot  and 
the  failure  of  the  government  to  raise  their  wages  from 
$9  a  month  to  something  nearer  a  full  rice-bowl. 
Naturally,  being  well  disciplined,  they  permitted  this 
gentle  zephyr  of  revolt  to  blow  across  the  already 
somewhat  overheated  brows  of  the  officials,  and  as  a 
consequence  were  dissuaded  from  disgracing  their 
country,  so  famed  for  loyalty. 

To  strike  is  still  unlawful  in  Japan.  Consequently, 
discontent  generally  ends  in  violence,  seldom,  if  ever, 
evolving  any  constructive  reform  or  benefit  other  than 
a  small  increase  in  pay  or  bonus.  But  recently  the 
government,  according  to  Mr.  Tokonami,  the  Home 
Minister,  has  "deemed  it  a  wise  policy  to  leave  things 
to  take  their  own  course  without  definitely  encouraging 
the  formation  of  unions.  Under  the  laws  now  in  force 
a  labor  union  is  neither  prohibited  nor  recognized.  It 
is  not,  therefore,  absolutely  impossible  for  such  an  or- 
ganization to  be  brought  into  existence.  .  .  .  The  gov- 
ernment's attitude  must  not  be  construed,  however,  as 
unduly  indifferent  to  the  labor  question.  It  is,  needless 
to  say,  ready  to  give  attention  to  the  cultivation  of  har- 
monious relations  between  capital  and  labor.  As 
foreign  examples  clearly  indicated,  the  development  of 
labor  unions  was  due  to  the  advancement  and  progress 
of  the  working-people  themselves  rather  than  to  the 
promulgation  of  laws  governing  them." 

On  February  nth  the  director  of  the  Police  Bureau 
in  the  Home  Department  published  a  statement  to  the 
effect  that  inasmuch  as  Japan  never  had  any  law  pro- 
hibiting the  formation  of  labor  unions,  there  was,  there- 


360  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

fore,  none  necessary  for  their  regulation.  The  point  he 
raised  was  that  Article  17  of  the  Police  Regulations  is 
often  misconstrued  as  being  an  obstacle  against  unions. 
If,  said  the  director,  "frequent  recourse  to  strikes  is  the 
only  way  to  secure  the  development  of  labor  unions  that 
police  regulation  may  well  be  regarded  in  that  light, 
because  in  Clause  2  of  the  said  article  enticement  and 
instigation  to  strike  are  prohibited."  Superficially  this 
may  sound  extremely  humane,  but  in  a  country  but  half 
a  century  out  of  feudalism  a  regulation  so  loosely  con- 
structed is  a  greater  menace  to  the  people  than  a  definite 
prohibition.  The  attitude  of  the  authorities  to  such 
questions  has  taken  a  marked  change,  however,  since 
the  defeat  of  Germany. 

The  Yuaikai  is  a  small  benevolent,  friendly  society 
with  some  forty  thousand  members.  It  has  been  in 
existence  for  several  years.  Its  president  is  Mr.  Suzuki 
Bunji,  a  man  well  known  to  labor  men  in  America  and 
Europe.  The  Yuaikai  has  been  agitating  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  Article  17.  As  a  result,  a  public  meeting  was 
held  on  April  2oth  last,  at  the  Central  Public  Hall  in 
Osaka,  to  discuss  the  inauguration  of  the  Kwansai  Rodo 
Domeikai  (Labor  Union  of  the  Kwansai  district).  The 
feature  of  the  new  organization  is  that  all  the  officials 
are  elected  from  among  the  workmen  of  the  various 
factories.  Some  fifteen  hundred  members  from  Kobe, 
Kyoto,  and  Osaka  were  present  at  the  meeting  and  the 
proceedings  were  carried  on  in  an  orderly  manner. 
There  are  numerous  minor  organizations;  many  sprang 
into  existence  lately,  but  they  changed  in  motive  as 
readily  as  they  appeared.  One  which  gave  much 
promise  was  the  Nippon  Rodo  Kumiai  (Japan  Labor 
Union)  with  about  two  thousand  members  from  about 
forty  factories.  But  it  has  gone  the  way  of  most  things 
in  Japan — 'Succumbed  to  officialism. 

When  the  question  of  racial  discrimination  was  de- 


THE  RICE  RIOTS  361 

bated  at  the  Peace  Conference  and  Mr.  Gompers  pressed 
the  Japanese  to  better  their  labor  standards,  they  argued 
that  labor  conditions  in  Japan  are  different  from  what 
they  are  in  the  West.  What  they  really  meant  was 
that  the  feudalistic  spirit  is  not  yet  dead  in  Japan,  and 
that  as  long  as  an  employer  acts  the  benevolent  lord  to 
his  men  they  will  remain  loyal  to  him. 

I  was  in  Tokyo  at  the  time  of  the  rice  riots.  The 
streets  were  crowded  with  silent  people.  The  police 
dashed  across  the  length  of  the  city  in  motor-cars, 
quelling  an  outbreak  here  and  another  there.  The 
imperial  troops  from  the  palace  sounded  their  bugle  and 
their  tread  through  Hibiya  Park.  But  in  the  streets  all 
was  dark  and  silent.  The  riots  had  broken  out  from 
one  end  of  Japan  to  the  other.  The  price  of  rice  had 
been  rising  steadily  for  some  months.  The  people  every- 
where had  watched  the  shrinking  of  their  rather  unex- 
pected earnings  with  grave  apprehension.  What  seemed 
like  an  hour  of  prosperity  suddenly  turned  out  to  be  a 
day  of  want.  Even  the  impossible,  but  indispensable, 
daikon  (a  kind  of  radish)  had  gone  up  from  a  cent  and 
a  half  to  seven  and  a  half  cents  apiece,  while  the  general 
cost  of  living  had  doubled. 

The  cause  of  the  riots  lies  clearly  enough  in  Japan's 
rigid  nationalism.  The  consequences  which  may  always 
be  expected  to  result  from  monarchy  and  oligarchy  are 
unexpected  revolution  coming  at  toppling  speed.  In  a 
democratic  country  revolution  could  not  be  precipitate. 
There  is  altogether  too  much  flexibility  in  its  political 
structure.  Revolution  would  have  to  come  in  cycles 
and  waves  of  storminess.  But  in  Japan,  when  anything 
comes  it  comes  suddenly  and  universally,  as  in  Russia, 
and  as  in  the  rice  riots.  Japan,  when  it  examined  the 
effects  of  that  devastating  storm,  thought  clearly  for  a 
moment,  and  then  it  shuddered. 

It  seemed  that  a  flush  of  real  life  had  come  over 


362  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

Japan.  It  seemed  that  the  government  would  realize 
that  the  riots  had  a  cause  and  that  the  cure  was  in 
loosening  up  the  ties  that  bind  the  masses.  But  there 
was  only  talk  of  need  of  guidance.  Bureaucracy,  feeling 
itself  threatened,  clutched  at  its  clumsy  stick  in  anxiety. 
This  menacing  has  just  the  opposite  effect — it  drives  the 
people  into  mass-organization  for  self -protection.  "The 
government  does  not  allow  strikes  on  a  large  scale,"  said 
a  Japanese.  So,  of  course,  it  must  content  itself  with 
riots.  Once  I  overheard  a  Tokyo  official,  who  was 
asked  how  it  was  that  postal  employees,  getting  only 
$9  a  month,  got  along  and  why  they  didn't  strike,  say, 
innocently  and  sincerely,  "We  must  be  loyal  to  our 
Emperor."  A  Japanese  army  officer  may  have  a  family 
of  four,  yet  he  has  to  live  on  $21  a  month,  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  Japan  Advertiser,  he  spends  as  follows: 

For  rice,  fuel,  shoyu  and  milk  Yen 

722  2.50 13.50 

Side  dishes 4.00 

Rent ii  .00 

Wages  for  the  nurse 2.00 

Income  tax 1.50 

Husband's  private  expenses 3.00 

Wife's  "       1.50 

Social  1.50 

Education  of  children i.oo 

Emergency  expenses i.oo 

Saving 2.00         42.00 


Teachers  in  1918  received  $6  to  $60  a  month,  though 
the  vast  majority  earned  no  more  than  $15.  The  gov- 
ernment decided  to  grant  a  subsidy  of  about  $150,000, 
so  that  when  all  divisions  were  made  it  would  change 
the  salaries  to  maximums  of  from  $55  to  $65.  Police- 
men had  been  receiving  as  much  as  $6  a  month.  The 
most  humiliating  conditions  in  public  service  are  to  be 
found  among  these  professionals.  A  school-teacher 


REMNANTS  OF   FEUDALISM  363 

may  not  earn  more  than  $50  a  month,  but  if  he  is  al- 
lowed to  call  himself  professor  and  wear  a  frock-coat,  no 
matter  how  green  with  age,  he  is  generally  content. 

Koreans  by  the  thousands  are  working  in  Japan  for 
from  twenty-five  to  ten  cents  a  day,  and  a  very  wise 
investigator,  in  making  comparisons  between  Japanese 
and  Korean  laborers,  observed  that  the  Koreans  did 
not  save  anything,  whereas  the  assumption  was  that 
the  Japanese  did.  Not  a  very  great  recommendation 
that. 

The  seamen  through  the  Yuaikai  made  demand  for  a 
5o-per-cent  increase  on  the  ground  that  foreign  seamen 
received  from  five  to  seven  times  the  wages  they  did. 

Of  course,  conditions  are  changing  and  salaries  are 
rising,  but  that  is  because  the  professionals  are  leaving 
their  professions  and  going  into  business  where  they 
may  receive  from  $50  to  $75  a  month,  and  bonuses  be- 
sides. Even  servant-girls  are  demanding  leisure  and 
better  pay. 

The  factories  are  drawing  people  out  of  their  feudal 
helplessness,  though  the  conditions  in  the  factories  are 
shocking  enough.  There  is  a  shortage  of  labor  even 
here  where  there  are  many  more  people  than  industry 
can  provide  for.  The  naval  arsenal  at  Kure  was  short 
of  skilled  shipwrights  and  had  to  borrow  five  hundred 
to  a  thousand  men  from  the  Kawasaki  people  in  Kobe. 
Korean  labor  offers  Japan  a  solution,  but  this  creates  the 
same  situation  in  Japan  as  Oriental  labor  does  in  Cali- 
fornia. However,  this  loosening  up  of  the  system  is  the 
most  healthful  sign  of  things  in  Japan,  notwithstanding 
that  it  is  bringing  in  its  wake  a  series  of  disquieting  con- 
ditions. Figures  don't  tell  anything.  One  need  only 
look  about  him  on  the  streets  of  Japan,  one  need  only 
walk  down  Minatogawa,  the  theater  street  of  Kobe, 
after  the  Kawasaki  dockyard  laborers  turn  home  from 
their  shifts — to  see  that  Japan  is  undergoing  rapid 


364  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

industrialization.     These  very  laborers  have  since  gone 
on  strike  with  the  rest. 

Though  organization  is  prohibited  the  workers,  co- 
operation is  not  unknown  in  Japan.  At  the  Kobe 
Higher  Commercial  School  there  is  a  small  co-operative 
book-store  in  which  almost  all  the  needs  of  school  life, 
and  even  clothing  and  such  things,  are  bought  and  sold 
on  a  co-operative  basis.  The  amount  of  money  students 
usually  have  to  spend  is  so  low  that,  were  they  not  to 
find  some  such  means  of  decreasing  their  cost  of  living 
it  would  be  impossible  for  them  to  attend  school  at  all. 
The  Civil  Service  Supply  Association  and  the  army  and 
navy  stores  are  co-operative  undertakings  meant  to 
offset  the  wretched  pay  officials  submit  to  for  the  sake 
of  prestige. 


XXV 

CONFLICTING    SOCIAL    FORCES — II 


rO  great  nation  has  gone  in  so  completely 
for  government  ownership  of  many  of  the 
big  public  utilities,  the  railroads,  tele- 
graphs, post-office,  and  even  the  sub- 
sidizing of  steamship  companies,  as  has 
Japan.  Of  course,  with  the  reorganization  of  the 
government  of  the  country,  which  up  to  1878  had  not 
only  been  feudalistic  but  paternalistic,  it  was  a  simple 
matter  to  think  in  terms  of  public  ownership.  Every- 
thing belongs  to  the  Emperor,  was  the  thought.  And 
though  the  right  of  the  individual  to  private  property 
was  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution,  it  was  not  far  from 
the  national  mental  attitude  toward  property  in  the 
Tokugawa  period  (1600  to  1868)  to  the  running  of  the 
railroads  by  the  government  in  the  Meiji  era  (1868  to 
1912).  Furthermore,  had  not  the  government  under- 
taken these  several  industries  there  would  have  been 
none  in  Japan  financially  able  to  do  so. 

The  government  tussled  with  the  problem  of  the  high 
cost  of  living  last  year  in  the  same  fatherly  way.  Speak- 
ing in  the  Diet,  an  M.P.  said:  "Unless  some  radical 
methods  are  devised  for  the  regulation  of  prices  at  the 
present  juncture,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  some  very  serious 
results  will  be  produced  to  society  in  future.  No  sooner 
does  the  government  take  steps  to  regulate  them  than 


366  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

they  go  down,  but  the  instant  the  government  relaxes 
its  efforts  in  this  direction  they  go  up.  The  question  is, 
which  must  receive  more  serious  attention:  the  uneasi- 
ness of  a  small  batch  of  speculators  or  that  felt  by 
50,000,000  people?  The  prices  of  provisions  and  daily 
necessaries  ruling  in  London  are  far  more  moderate  than 
those  quoted  in  Tokyo."  But  speculation  continued, 
nor  were  members  of  the  House  of  Peers  themselves 
above  profiteering. 

The  consumer  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  intermediary. 
Led  to  a  very  great  extent  by  the  agitation  set  going 
by  the  foreign  residents,  various  cities  began  to  consider 
the  establishing  of  public  markets.  Osaka  established 
ten  at  a  cost  of  about  $150,000.  The  Hyogo  (Kobe) 
Agricultural  Association  set  up  a  market,  and  so  great 
was  the  rush  the  first  day  that  the  Red  Cross  had  to 
come  on  the  scene  with  a  special  tent  to  give  aid  to  those 
who  could  not  stand  the  strain.  Within  forty  minutes 
of  opening  everything  was  sold  out.  And  later  the  Kobe 
Chamber  of  Commerce  set  itself  on  record  as  in  favor  of 
permanent  markets.  It  must  be  remembered  that  this 
is  as  revolutionary  a  step  in  the  life  of  Japanese  as  rail- 
roads or  airplanes,  for  the  home  life  and  house  condi- 
tions of  Japan  have  heretofore  made  it  imperative  that 
venders  bring  their  products  to  every  door.  No  home 
is  safe  with  the  housewife  gone  to  market. 

Further  to  find  some  solution  to  the  problem  of 
poverty,  the  Osaka  municipal  authorities  established 
cheap  eating-houses  where  they  served  what  were  re- 
garded as  fairly  substantial  meals  for  ten  sen.  Kobe 
also  built  a  model  communal  kitchen  back  of  the  recrea- 
tion-grounds, which,  at  its  inception,  at  least,  was  vastly 
cleaner  than  the  so-called  restaurants  all  over  town. 

Where  there  is  lack  of  co-operation  or  organization 
during  a  period  of  great  change  and  development,  riot 
and  scandal  are  unavoidable.  And  scandal  enough  in 


\VIIILE  THIS  PUMP  PUMPS  Till-   FIRE  BURNS 


HUT  THIS  INSTRUMENT  MIGHT  SCAKK 
IT  TO  DKATH 


THIS  WAS  LEFT  OK  PART  OF  YOKOHAMA 

Ai- 1  I-:K  'i  in-:  FIKK 


SCANDAL  367 

business  and  government  circles  there  has  been  in  Japan 
these  last  few  years.  Hardly  a  day  or  week  went  by 
without  a  report  of  a  fresh  scandal  or  an  addition  to 
reports  of  old  ones. 

The  president  of  the  Wakamatsu  State  Steel  Works 
in  Kyushu,  a  government  concern,  committed  suicide 
because  he  was  being  drilled  too  severely  on  the  matter 
of  a  contract  for  30,000  tons  of  steel  a  year,  which  was 
to  have  been  delivered  to  the  Tokai  Goyo  Kaisha  for  ten 
years.  The  contract  had  been  made  before  the  boom  in 
steel,  but  the  government  wanted  to  know  why  the 
president  insisted  on  living  up  to  the  agreement  of  sup- 
plying steel  at  a  low  rate  when  it  could  not  be  purchased 
at  a  premium  elsewhere.  An  endless  chain  of  corruption 
followed,  with  117  arrests,  6  suicides,  and  i  murder. 
High  dignitaries  were  involved,  even  an  ex-priest,  who, 
it  is  said,  gained  a  reward  of  100,000  yen  in  the  deal. 
Besides  the  irregularities  that  went  on  in  these  steel- 
works, there  was  a  case  of  10,000,000  yen  graft  in 
steamer  charter.  There  were  arrests  for  bribery  in 
which  big  shipowners  were  involved  (not  to  mention 
the  geisha,  who  were  also  searched).  Railroad  officials 
were  arrested  and  sentenced,  or  their  sentences  stayed, 
for  receiving  bribes.  The  giving  and  receiving  of  bribes 
in  sums  as  big  as  100,000  yen  are  little  less  common  in 
Japan  than  tipping.  The  Kobe  City  Assembly  was  en- 
tangled in  a  real-estate  scandal.  The  mayor  of  Kyoto 
went  to  prison  because  of  an  election  scandal  and  his 
connection  with  the  Kyoto  Electric  Light  Company 
affair.  In  Nagoya  320,000  yen  disappeared  from  the 
Prefectural  Bank,  resulting  in  another  scandal.  There 
were  still  other  scandals  involving  schools,  telephones, 
waterworks,  the  patent  bureau,  jails,  and  the  disap- 
pearance of  a  bank  director — and  out  of  477  factories 
investigated  in  Osaka,  315  were  violating  the  factory 

laws. 
24 


368  JAPAN— REAL  AND   IMAGINARY 

During  the  war  theft,  purse-snatching,  stealing  of 
cargo,  lifting  of  drains  from  the  street  gutters  to  sell 
them  as  iron  junk  (even  a  Shinto  priest  was  caught 
shoplifting),  pickpocketing  by  children  and  grown-ups, 
burglarizing,  stealing  clothing  from  homes  (especially 
foreign  clothes,  which  until  recently  were  considered  a 
white  elephant  among  native  thieves  because  the  natives 
didn't  wear  them  so  much  and  the  thief  could  therefore 
be  more  easily  detected) ,  breaking  into  houses  and  using 
daggers — no  neighbor  would  think  of  coming  to  the 
rescue — were  common.  Though  I  never  felt  in  the 
slightest  degree  uneasy,  day  or  night,  anywhere  and 
everywhere  in  the  Empire,  still  considerable  misgiving 
was  felt  because  of  the  sudden  increase  in  crime  which 
followed  in  the  wake  of  the  war  prosperity  and  war 
poverty.  But  with  the  salaries  of  members  of  parlia- 
ment only  a  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  only  2  per 
cent  of  the  population  having  an  income  of  a  thousand 
dollars  a  year,  bribery  and  its  kindred  scandals  are 
inevitable. 

Scandal  in  Japanese  industrial  life  is  only  one  phase  of 
the  present  chaos.  Another  is  that  vast  number  of 
cases  of  breach  of  contract  which  torment  the  foreigner 
in  the  East.  Japanese  business  morality,  from  the 
western  point  of  view,  is  hard  to  get  at.  The  matches 
which  won't  light,  the  shirts  which  won't  button  be- 
cause the  buttons  have  been  pasted  on  to  them  instead 
of  sewed,  the  shirts  without  sleeves,  the  brushes  with 
bristles  shorter  than  ordered,  the  failure  to  fill  orders 
for  socks  because  another  has  given  a  higher  offer  and, 
though  coming  late,  gets  them  first — these  and  any  num- 
ber of  other  cases  place  the  standard  of  Japanese  business 
ethics  upon  a  pretty  low  plane.  True  that  foreigners 
have  often  enough  earned  this,  and,  as  was  shown  at  the 
time  of  the  signing  of  the  armistice,  themselves  acted  in 
as  culpable  a  manner.  But  this  is  not  a  book  on  the 


DONATING  UNDER   DURESS  369 

world,  only  on  Japan.  And  in  Japan — whether  it  be 
the  Oriental  twist  to  a  bargain  or  out  and  out  dis- 
honesty— morality  is  secondary  to  success.  However, 
credit  is  due  in  other  ways.  Besides  the  spirit  of  com- 
mercial life  being  better,  less  harsh,  less  exacting,  more 
trusting — as,  for  instance,  Japanese  dealers  will  receive 
checks  from  strangers  even  when  the  stranger  says  he  is 
leaving  port  in  a  few  days,  as  did  one  dealer  from  me — 
and  when  one  deals  with  the  large  firms,  such  as  the 
Sumutomo,  one  can  be  pretty  certain  that  fair  dealing 
will  be  the  guiding  principle. 

Aside  from  the  wide  display  of  charities  distributed 
Heaven  knows  where,  little  or  nothing  is  done  for  Japan's 
poor,  and  much  to  make  the  moderately  poor  more  so 
by  way  of  industrialism.  Three  years  ago  it  was  the 
boast  of  Japanese  that  their  "peculiar"  system  made 
strikes  impossible,  because  the  relations  of  capitalists  and 
laborers  were  based  on  bushido  and  loyalty.  The  family 
system  in  factories,  wherein  the  idea  of  kindness  alias 
charity  is  the  key-note,  not  independence  and  vigor,  still 
obtains.  This  charitableness  extends  beyond  a  little, 
but  emphasizes  the  state  of  affairs,  as  when  an  Osaka 
narikin,  who  had  made  vast  riches  during  the  war, 
donated  half  a  million  yen  for  the  establishment  of  a 
free  hospital,  not  for  paupers,  but  for  the  salaried  folk, 
who  very  often,  when  they  become  ill,  are  in  a  worse 
situation  than  even  the  very  poor  laborers. 

Donating  under  duress  would  be  an  excellent  title  for 
a  study  of  the  charities  of  many  of  the  narikin.  The 
rice  riots  have  shaken  their  faith  in  wealth  as  a  source  of 
happiness,  though  Ebisu,  the  Japanese  little  god  of  luck, 
has  been  very  active  these  days.  When  the  Suzuki 
and  other  buildings  were  destroyed  in  the  riots,  the 
timid  among  the  profiteers  at  once  began  to  dispose  of 
part  of  their  gains.  They  were  ready  to  relinquish  these 
in  the  way  of  bonuses  and  bribery  upon  the  first  bit  of 


370  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

pressure  from  beneath.  On  the  other  hand,  some  big 
firms  have  taken  an  interest  in  their  workers  voluntarily. 
The  Mitsubishi  Company  contributed  a  million  yen  for 
the  comfort  and  amusement  of  the  workers  employed 
at  its  shipbuilding  yards  at  Nagasaki  and  Kobe.  One 
of  the  first  uses  to  which  this  million  was  placed  was  a 
theater-party,  lasting  seven  days,  at  the  biggest  Kobe 
theater,  to  which  the  15,000  workers  and  their  families 
were  invited.  Some  of  the  big  firms  are  establishing 
athletic  clubs,  putting  up  buildings  for  rowing  clubs  and 
dormitories  for  their  employees.  Some  are  founding 
institutions.  There  is  something  obviously  wrong  about 
labor  in  a  condition  requiring  a  charity  in  the  form  of  a 
week's  outing  at  a  theater.  Yet  that  which  would  go 
farthest  toward  the  elimination  of  just  this  kind  of 
charity  is  the  very  thing  which  is  not  permitted  in 
Japan.  To  make  men  and  their  families  feel  emotion- 
ally mortgaged  is  apparently  considered  good;  to  allow 
them  to  learn  that  their  common  difficulties  can  be 
met  by  common  action  is  regarded  as  disloyalty. 

Turning  our  consideration  to  the  rich  man — we  find 
that  as  though  it  were  not  enough  to  have  his  house  and 
goods  threatened  by  the  rising  tide  of  democracy,  he 
has  had  to  face  wordy  admonitions  from  the  government 
and  press.  They  began  advising  the  narikin  how  they 
could  dispose  of  their  money — by  supporting  the  govern- 
ment's airplane  construction  fund,  for  instance,  as  did 
one  narikin  by  a  contribution  of  a  million  yen,  by 
building  public  roads,  and  in  other  ways.  Ministers  in 
general  are  extremely  solicitous  of  the  welfare  of  the 
country,  as  was  Baron  Goto,  the  Minister  of  Agriculture 
and  Commerce,  when  he  called  a  conference  of  all  the 
governors  of  the  Ken  of  the  Empire  and  spoke  in  soft 
and  appealing  terms,  showing  how  bad  it  is  for  men  to 
speculate,  how  unjust,  how  they  who  hitherto  had 
wandered  from  the  paths  of  imperial  righteousness  should 


DISGRACED  371 

wander  back  again.  The  Mitsui  Bussan  Kaisha  made 
about  $20,000,000  war  profits  in  1917;  yet  when  a  war- 
profits  tax  was  proposed,  the  nankin  threatened  to  stop 
their  charities  in  the  event  of  its  being  imposed. 

More  than  most  people,  the  Japanese  have  many  deep- 
rooted  prejudices,  which  cannot  be  shaken  even  in  the 
face  of  serious  consequences.  The  government  tried  to 
introduce  foreign  rice,  but  it  was  received  scornfully.  A 
mixture  of  rice  and  wheat  is  the  latest  dietetic  innova- 
tion. Potatoes  have  been  put  forth  as  a  substitute,  but 
in  this,  too,  the  fame  of  the  Japanese  for  loyalty  is  waning 
— they  balked. 

The  Terauchi  administration,  then  in  power,  sold 
cheap  rice  and  discussed  the  prohibition  of  the  use  of 
rice  in  brewing  sake.  Speculators  were  made  examples 
of,  but  not  really  punished.  The  government  attempted 
to  handle  the  purchase  and  transportation  of  rice.  It 
set  aside  riceless  days.  It  opened  public  markets  for  the 
sale  of  cheap  rice.  These  markets  were  patronized  by 
long  queues  of  poor.  Tokyo  put  $20,000  a  day  into 
cheap  rice.  But  it  seemed  of  no  avail.  The  Terauchi 
Cabinet,  regarded  by  the  masses  and  part  of  the  press 
as  indolent,  stupid,  and  weak,  was  unmercifully  severe 
toward  the  rioters.  In  dealing  with  the  question,  more 
socialists  were  arrested  than  profiteers,  the  eta  were 
blamed  even  more,  and  public  morality  was  despaired 
of.  But  the  administration  could  not  save  itself. 
Shortly  afterward  it  fell,  and  was  replaced  by  the  Kara 
Cabinet,  now  in  control.  But,  truth  to  tell,  Japan's 
population,  increasing  by  800,000  a  year,  is  fast  out- 
growing its  ability  to  feed  itself.  Its  resources  are 
limited  and  industrialization — which  alone  can  save  it — is 
seriously  hampered — hampered  by  nature  and  by  the 
limitations  of  an  oligarchy  and  the  short-sighted  military 
and  naval  clans  who  run  this  Oriental  world.  With  the 
regions  of  the  Hokkaido  (the  island  north  of  Yezo)  still 


372  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

practically  untouched,  the  claim  of  overpopulation  falls 
to  the  ground.  Militarism  has  no  plan  except  expan- 
sion. Industrialization,  properly  handled,  is  the  cure. 

Voicing  the  spirit  of  the  rising,  though  still  faintly 
heard,  protest  against  bureaucracy,  Mr.  Yukio  Ozaki, 
one  of  the  oldest  members  of  the  Diet  and  the  idol  of  the 
people,  says  that,  though  no  actor  can  hope  to  hold  an 
audience  for  longer  than  two  months  in  the  same  place, 
"the  bureaucrats  in  their  slipshod  manner  have  held  on 
against  the  interest  of  the  people  for  fifty  years.  No 
wonder  the  people  have  become  thoroughly  sick  of  them.1 
That  the  overthrow  of  militarism  in  Germany  is  the 
result  of  the  present  war  may  be  regarded  as  a  foregone 
conclusion,  yet  the  militarists  of  Japan  want  to  tread 
in  the  footsteps  of  the  German  militarists.  They  do 
not  understand  freedom  of  the  subject  and  the  rights  of 
the  workers,  and  try  to  keep  them  in  subjection  by  force." 
Yet  when  Mr.  Ozaki  left  Japan  he  said  that  he  would 
start  a  labor  party,  but  that  laborers  in  Japan  were  not 
sufficiently  trained  and  independent  to  support  one. 

Viscount  Kato,  leader  of  the  Kenseikai,  the  largest 
party  in  Japan,  now  admits  that  labor  problems  must  be 
faced  courageously.  The  present  Ministry  pretends  to  be 
sympathetic  to  unions,  but  laborers  may  organize  only 
with  the  sanction  of  the  government.  Many  of  the 
newspapers  are  clamoring  for  greater  liberalism.  One 
learned  doctor  advocates  that  only  when  a  man  spends 
his  wealth  intelligently  should  he  be  permitted  to  keep 
it,  but  paying  thousands  for  an  old  vase  is  to  him  un- 
pardonable. Certainly  there  is  an  outcry  against  nari- 
kinism  in  Japan,  and  for  better  relations  between 
labor  and  capital.  There  has  been  a  tremendous, 
though  essentially  selfish  and  undemocratic,  demand 
from  the  students  of  the  universities  for  greater  share 
in  the  political  activity  of  the  country — though  it  was 
suppressed  by  the  police.  People  are  getting  tired  of 


VOICES  IN  THE  STORM  373 

contributions  of  a  million  yen  here  and  another  there 
as  a  solution  of  a  grave  economic  problem. 

Though  the  peers'  parties  all  united,  the  leader  of 
the  Kenseikai,  a  so-called  commoner,  came  into  power 
on  the  wave  of  liberalism  following  the  upheaval  of 
1918.  I  venture  to  say  that  Mr.  Hara  is  not  much 
more  of  a  liberal  than  was  Terauchi,  even  though  he  does 
come  from  the  "people."  But  this  selection  of  Hara  for 
premiership  by  the  Emperor  was  a  great  step  in  advance 
for  a  country  ruled  as  is  Japan.  For  a  country  in  which 
women  still  work  on  an  average  of  from  fourteen  to 
sixteen  hours  a  day  under  shocking  and  immoral  con- 
ditions; where  three-fifths  of  the  people  are  engaged  in 
agriculture  and  90  per  cent  of  them  on  patches  of  land 
from  two  and  a  half  to  five  acres  in  size,  though  even 
this  is  rapidly  disappearing — a  commoner  in  power  is 
prophetic.  So-called  politicians  and  leaders  refer  to 
their  Emperor,  who  politically  is  an  autocrat  of  auto- 
crats, though  personally  he  is  without  blame,  as  a  great 
"socialist."  Still,  he  is  the  ruler  of  a  country  in  which, 
even  were  the  tax  making  a  man  eligible  for  voting  one 
dollar  instead  of  five,  there  would  still  be  only  four 
million  voters  out  of  fifty-five  million  potential  citizens. 

Though  there  are  not  many  in  politics  in  Japan  with 
a  real  understanding  of  what  democracy  means,  the  rice 
riots  have  opened  their  eyes.  They  are  giving  con- 
siderable attention  to  labor  problems,  but  they  are  now 
too  old  for  any  actual  constructive  work.  In  the  student 
lies  the  hope  of  Japan.  Since  the  armistice  there  has 
been  more  real  thinking  and  acting  on  behalf  of  labor 
than  in  the  whole  of  Japan's  past  history.  Mr.  Suzuki, 
the  president  of  th3  Yuaikai,  returned  to  Japan  from 
Paris  where  he  represented  his  country  at  the  Inter- 
national Labor  Conference.  He  was  heralded  every- 
where, crowds  meeting  him  with  cheers  of  enthusiasm. 
As  an  indication  of  the  awakening,  there  is  already 


374  JAPAN— REAL  AND   IMAGINARY 

considerable  difference  of  opinion  among  laborers  since 
his  return. 

Though  the  papers  here  have  hardly  more  than  no- 
ticed the  International  Labor  Conference  which  has 
been  in  session  at  Washington  all  through  this  weary 
month  of  strikes — November — our  little  island  empire 
at  our  left — Japan — has  been  in  a  perfect  hubbub  of 
excitement.  Japan  took  the  matter  very  seriously. 
Some  seventy  or  eighty  men  made  up  the  delegation, 
including  as  its  leaders  doctors  and  capitalists — a  motley 
array  of  personages  and  their  inevitable  retinue.  Since 
the  reports  in  the  American  papers  on  the  agenda  and 
the  deliberations  were  almost  scarce,  the  findings  of  the 
conference  must  in  no  wise  have  compensated  Japan 
for  its  fine-tooth-comb  process  of  selecting  delegates 
who  should  neither  know  enough  about  labor  problems 
to  understand  what  was  toward  nor  present  too  mani- 
fest a  desire  to  learn  which  might  indicate  lack  of  experi- 
ence at  home.  Thus  it  came  about  that  while  we  Hardly 
heard  the  voice  of  these  proletarian  confreres  above  the 
din  of  strikes  and  social  unrest,  in  Japan  it  seems  every- 
thing else  was  laid  aside  to  select  representatives  who, 
as  stated  above,  might  give  the  impression  of  unstinted 
concern  on  the  part  of  paternalistic  Mutsuhito  for  his 
little  sons,  his  kodomo. 

When  visitors  come,  does  the  teacher  call  upon  her 
backward  pupil  for  exhibition?  Japan  was  careful. 
Every  other  country  can  be  as  stupid  as  it  likes.  Gov- 
ernments everywhere  may  do  as  they  will.  Japan  has 
great  consideration  for  its  toilers.  It  will  not  let  them 
founder.  So  Baron  Shijo,  director  of  the  Industrial 
Bureau  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture  and  Com- 
merce, approached  a  certain  Mr.  Masumoto,  a  univer- 
sity graduate  and  one  of  the  principals  of  the  Harima 
and  Toba  shipyards,  with  the  offer  of  the  post  as  dele- 
gate to  the  conference.  Mr.  Masumoto's  qualifications 


A  LITTLE  FARCE  375 

lay  in  his  having  spent  some  time  as  workman  in  English 
shipyards.  Mr.  Masumoto  found  it  necessary  to  consult 
with  Mr.  Yamamoto,  Minister  of  Agriculture  and  Com- 
merce. An  atrophied  form  of  harakiri  still  exists  in 
Japan,  and  because  his  status  as  a  labor  delegate  was 
questioned,  Mr.  Masumoto  forthwith  resigned  his 
places  in  these  companies  and  accepted  the  delegateship. 
But  Japanese  laborers  also  know  how  to  "die"  in  good 
form.  Knowing  this,  the  government  found  it  advisable 
to  guard  Mr.  Masumoto  against  harm.  And  Mr. 
Masumoto,  opposed  by  labor,  stood  his  ground  as  labor's 
representative. 

Had  Japan  been  content  with  one  delegate,  my  story 
would  end  here.  But  there  is  much  more  to  be  told. 

Doctor  Takano  was  also  approached  by  the  govern- 
ment, but  he  declined  on  account  of  his  lack  of  knowledge 
of  labor  matters,  and  because  he  knew  that  the  two 
strong  labor  organizations — the  Ynaikai  and  SJiinaikai 
—would  protest.  Not  that  they  objected  to  Doctor 
Takano,  but  they  argued  that  the  government  had 
not  consulted  them  and  that  therefore  they  would 
block  any  attempt  to  send  delegates  unaccredited  from 
them  direct.  "The  government,  however,  failed  to 
take  steps  in  the  direction  of  negotiating  with  labor 
organizations,"  said  Doctor  Takano.  "As  for  the  atti- 
tude of  the  Ynaikai,  I  calculated  that  it  was  not  opposed 
to  me  as  Japanese  labor  delegate,  individually,  but  it 
evidently  determined  to  remain  faithful  to  the  original 
contention  that  the  conference  which  selected  candi- 
dates was  lacking  in  qualification."  Now  here  is  indeed 
a  dilemma — a  doctor  who  is  pleasing  in  the  eyes  of  a 
strong  labor  organization  and  approved  of  by  the  gov- 
ernment, but  is  opposed  for  the  post  because  labor  had 
not  been  asked  for  its  recommendations.  Feeling  that 
he  could  not  afford  to  go  protested  by  labor,  he  resigned. 
And  thus  ended  the  second  episode  in  the  little  farce. 


376  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

The  Yuaikai  (Friendly  Society)  explained  its  position. 
It  could  not  possibly  compromise  at  the  very  beginning  of 
its  existence  as  part  of  an  international  labor  conference. 
To  accept  a  delegate  selected  for  them  by  the  conference 
of  the  Bureau  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture  and 
Commerce  was  in  their  eyes  destructive  compromise— 
and  they  would  rather  not  be  represented. 

This  opposition  to  the  government  aroused  internal 
trouble  in  the  labor  organization.  Doctor  Yoshino,  a 
professor  of  Tokyo  Imperial  University,  and  Mr.  Kita- 
zawa,  a  professor  of  Waseda  University,  withdrew  from 
councilorship  of  this  Friendly  Society  as  a  protest  against 
its  unreasonableness.  This  is  the  interlude  in  the  little 
labor  comedy. 

But  where  was  the  mass  of  labor  in  this  performance  ? 
It  organized  processions  or  proceeded  disorganized, 
wore  mourning,  and  hired  bands  to  play  a  funeral  march 
(which,  if  my  knowledge  of  things  Japanese  is  not 
warped,  meant  that  it  must  have  been  a  rendering  of 
"Alice,  Where  Art  Thou  Going?").  Miners  and  other 
laborers  gathered  in  the  park  in  Tokyo  with  emblems 
and  placards  calling  upon  their  fellow-laborers  to  awake! 
and  enjoyed  themselves  most  properly.  The  hero  of 
the  drama — Mr.  Masumoto — stood  firm. 

The  curtain  drops  here.  The  world's  applause  brings 
our  hero  out  in  front  of  the  curtain.  We,  the  world, 
shout  our  convinced  approval  of  the  progress  of  Japan. 
We  see  not  only  the  hero,  but  the  whole  cast — barring 
the  multitude — and  we  think  that  labor  conditions  in 
Japan  will  now  be  so  bettered  that  we  will  soon  be  able 
to  discard  our  legislation  against  the  importation  of 
cheap  Asiatic  labor.  But  Japan  smiles.  Once  more  she 
has  "put  one  over  on  us." 

In  the  mean  time  it  is  well  to  consider  that  back  in 
Japan  these  delegates  were  prompted  by  a  goodly  por- 
tion of  the  press  in  not  uncertain  terms  to  push  the 


THE  WORM  TURNS  377 

question  of  the  elimination  of  racial  discrimination  for 
all  they  were  worth.  As  they  were  feasted  before  their 
departure,  the  Prime  Minister,  Mr.  Kara,  and  others 
emphasized  in  the  same  breath  that  as  delegates  they 
should  remember  that  labor  conditions  are  not  the  same 
the  world  over  and  that  they  should  work  for  recogni- 
tion as  Orientals  without  discrimination.  This  is  the 
beginning  of  the  tragedy  which  may  some  day  be 
re-enacted  on  earth. 

Strikes  are  continuing  to  harass  Japan  as  much  as,  if 
not  more  than,  even  here  in  America.  The  government 
is  changing  its  attitude  on  suppression  of  labor  organiza- 
tion, is  tussling  with  the  problem  by  direct  and  indirect 
methods,  is  giving  earnest  consideration  to  the  acute  and 
intensified  problem  of  the  housing  of  the  poor,  establish- 
ing public  markets  of  unexpected  magnitude.  As  an 
indication  of  the  awakening  there  is  already  considerable 
difference  of  opinion  among  laborers  since  the  return 
of  Mr.  Masumoto. 

Japan  has  done  many  remarkable  things  for  herself 
in  the  past  fifty  years,  but  notwithstanding  her  trains 
and  her  telegraphs  and  all  her  modernism,  Japan  is 
still  very  far  from  being  a  perfect  country.  Inefficiency 
is  as  rife  in  the  practical  affairs  as  in  political  methods. 
The  post-office  went  as  near  complete  disorganization 
as  it  could  have  done.  Letters  posted  to  one's  neighbor 
took  days  and  weeks  to  reach  the  addressed,  and  packs 
of  them  were  delivered  wherever  the  boy  chose  to  leave 
them.  The  confusion  was  so  great  that  hundreds  of 
cases  of  delay  were  reported  from  day  to  day  in  a  special 
column  run  by  The  Japan  Chronicle.  The  officials 
came  down  and  we  gained  the  information  that  insuffi- 
cient pay  was  the  first  cause — and  sheer  stupidity  the 
second.  The  railroads  are  now  so  crowded  that  travel 
with  comfort  is  impossible.  Telegrams  have  been  sent 
from  Kobe  to  Tokyo  by  train,  that  method  being  safer 


378  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

and  more  rapid.  Telephones  cannot  be  secured  at  a 
premium,  many  firms  having  waited  years  for  installa- 
tions. The  roads  simply  aren't  roads  in  Japan.  The 
list  could  be  made  as  complete  as  could  be  desired. 

Yet  when  all  is  said  and  done,  one  suffers  from  a 
twinge  of  conscience;  for  returning  from  Japan,  where 
one  acquires  the  habit  of  criticizing  everything  and 
praising  nothing  (justified  as  that  may  be  in  detail), 
one  soon  finds  that  one  can  do  so  just  as  much  in  his  own 
country. 

An  American  offered  the  Imperial  University  at  Tokyo 
an  endowment  for  a  chair  in  American  history.  The 
government  hesitated;  it  shifted.  Then  suddenly  a 
chair  in  Shintoism — emperor-worship — was  established. 
.  .  .  Japan  may  keep  her  Emperor  for  years  to  come  if 
the  monarchy  survives  the  difficulties  ahead  of  it.  But 
the  surest  way  for  Japan  to  bring  about  her  own  eclipse 
as  a  great  nation  is  by  obstructing  her  people  in  their 
efforts  at  self-uplifting.  Japan  cannot  be  excused  be- 
cause, as  some  one  said,  the  Japanese  do  not  lie  awake 
at  night  plotting  to  extend  their  country's  sway.  They 
must  lie  awake — and  plot  their  own  development. 

One  might  forgive  the  various  administrations  which 
have  run  the  government  during  the  last  few  years  if 
they  had  at  least  so  bettered  internal  conditions  as  to 
justify  their  aggressive  foreign  policies.  But  while  lead- 
ing the  country  into  serious  international  difficulties, 
they  are  giving  the  people  at  home  little  or  nothing  with 
which  to  console  themselves  for  their  sacrifices.  Two 
things  remain  for  Japan  to  do  if  she  is  to  solve  her  do- 
mestic problems:  she  must  institute  universal  suffrage 
and  remove  the  ban  on  effective  organization. 


XXVI 

EDUCATION     BY    RESCRIPT 

[N  countries  like  Europe  and  America,  where 
education  has  been  specialized  for  so  many 
centuries,  to  attempt  to  treat  it  in  a  single 
chapter  would  be  to  become  vague  and  lose 
perspective;  for  the  present  methods  are  as 
dissociated  from  the  ancient  as  modern  mechanics 
and  engineering  are  from  man's  first  experiences  in 
drawing  water  with  a  pole.  But  in  Japan  it  is  just  the 
reverse.  To  ignore  historical  perspective  while  trying 
to  understand  our  problem  would  be  to  act  like  children 
who  tease  a  Rip  Van  Winkle  because  he  is  strange  to 
his  new  environment.  The  analogy  must  not  be  taken 
too  literally.  Japan  was  not  asleep  during  the  three 
hundred  years  of  seclusion.  We  have  made  no  progress 
which  can  rightfully  be  placed  above  theirs.  They  have 
not  slept  all  the  time;  neither  have  we  been  awake 
throughout.  Japan  during  that  age  of  isolation  was 
quite  active,  and  from  an  educational  point  of  view  did 
more  constructive  work  than  at  any  time  previous. 
But  we  must  go  still  farther  back  if  we  are  to  understand 
the  Japanese  of  to-day.  Whatever  criticisms  we  of 
Europe  and  America  make  must  be  done  in  the  light  of 
their  past.  Japan's  past  is  so  close  to  its  inexplicable 
present  that  neither  is  at  all  clear  without  the  other. 
Japan's  political  and  social  ideals,  its  standards  and  con- 
ditions, if  rightly  understood,  will  help  us  to  judge  that 
which  is  before  us,  and  say  truly  whether  things  have 


38o  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

been  bettered  or  made  worse  by  sudden  contact  with 
the  outer  world.  We  must  at  all  times  remember  that 
we  are  judging  largely  not  what  is  of  Japan,  but  what 
Japan  has  tried  to  do  with  things  not  hers.  All  that  we 
see  to-day  in  every  walk  of  life  is  a  development  duel  in 
make-up  trying  to  achieve  unity.  And  in  education, 
none  the  less.  We  see  not  a  nation  of  children  ready  and 
willing  to  accept  from  a  kind  teacher,  but  a  nation  of 
grown-ups  who,  like  many  immigrants  in  America,  have 
been  kept  too  long  away  from  normal  development 
and  are  now  trying  to  make  up  by  night  school  that 
which  they  could  easily  have  learned  in  childhood. 

From  time  immemorial  Japan  has  had  her  arts  and 
crafts,  which  developed  as  normally  as  anywhere  else 
in  the  world.  Japan's  actual  schooling  began  about 
twelve  hundred  years  ago.  It  was  at  that  time  that 
the  youthful  Kobo  Daishi  made  the  startling  pilgrimage 
to  China  and  there  acquired  knowledge  of  Buddhism 
and  of  writing.  Two  hundred  years  earlier  Shotoku 
Taishi,  the  Prince  Regent  (572-621),  had  become  a  great 
patron  of  Buddhism  and  did  more  than  any  one  to  spread 
its  influence  in  Japan.  At  that  time  education  and 
learning  may  be  said  to  have  had  their  real  beginning. 
But,  oddly  enough,  while  it  took  on  such  definite  forms  in 
Europe,  in  Japan  it  was  limited  to  the  study  of  the 
Chinese  classics.  In  Europe  the  universities  became 
the  centers  for  political  strife,  a  force  and  factor  in  life. 
More  than  one  war  was  fought  between  rival  factions 
within  the  universities.  But  here  learning  had  no  such 
sway.  In  later  years  the  Buddhist  monks  often  took 
things  into  their  own  hands,  and  as  late  as  the  time  of 
Nobunaga  (1534-1582)  were  a  menace  to  the  state  or 
daimyo  in  control.  But  learning  was  little  more  than 
existent,  there  being  only  one  university,  in  Kyoto. 
What  its  effect  was,  what  its  teachings  were,  little  is 
mentioned  in  official  and  unofficial  histories.  Of  scien- 


ARRESTED  DEVELOPMENT  381 

tific  investigation,  or  invention,  little  was  accomplished. 
The  learning  fostered  was  for  the  compilation  of  histories 
by  order  of  the  government.  The  first  history  of  Japan1 
was  compiled  under  the  direction  of  Shotoku  Taishi, 
but  even  in  this  matter  it  seems  that  the  university 
had  no  one  who  took  an  impartial  and  literary  interest 
in  keeping  records  of  events.  This  history  is  little 
more  than  a  chronological  list  of  sovereigns.  Medicine 
and  art  were  taught,  and  mathematics  to  a  certain 
extent,  but  even  these  and  other  educational  efforts 
were  essentially  limited  and  existed  for  the  benefit  of 
the  children  of  officials  and  not  those  of  the  masses. 
The  great  age  of  Japanese  art  and  literature  reached  its 
climax  in  the  Heian  epoch,  between  the  ninth  and 
twelfth  centuries.  During  that  period  most  of  the 
classic  Japanese  literature  and  painting  found  birth, 
though  they  were  indulged  in  completely  by  the  upper 
classes  and  courtiers.  Here  women  contributed  much 
if  not  most  of  the  great  works  in  literature.  The  poetry 
of  that  period  was,  however,  to  a  very  great  extent,  of  a 
dilettante  nature.  There  were  some  private  schools  in 
Kyoto,  but  they  confined  themselves  to  the  study  of  the 
Chinese  classics,  and  even  up  to  the  time  of  the  Restora- 
tion, reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic  were  taught  only 
in  the  temples.  Aside  from  these  and  the  general  social 
arts  such  as  music,  dancing,  and  the  tea  ceremonies, 
education  may  be  said  to  have  been  trimmed  even  more 
closely  up  to  the  time  of  the  first  Tokugawa  shogunate 
in  1613.  General  histories  of  Japan  make  little  more 
than  mere  reference  to  such  educational  pursuits. 

During  the  three  centuries  preceding  the  closing  of 
Japan  to  the  world  all  education  was  virtually  at  a 
standstill,  on  account  of  internal  strife.  These,  not  the 
three  hundred  years  of  isolation,  should  be  called  the 


1Kojiki,'or  "Records  of  Ancient  Matters,"  A.  D.  712. 


382  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

dark  ages.  But  with  the  final  cessation  of  strife  after 
Hideyoshi  conquered  the  warring  daimyos  and  real 
peace  came  to  Japan  education  began  to  be  regarded 
with  more  favor. 

The  closing  of  the  doors  of  Japan  to  foreign  inter- 
course was  followed  by  the  opening  of  the  transoms  of 
thought.  The  arts  of  peace  were  wisely  substituted  for 
those  of  war  by  the  governing  class.  The  fifth  Toku- 
gawa  shogun  was  the  most  zealous  in  the  advancement 
of  learning.  So  much  so  that  the  various  feudal  barons 
became  converts  and  established  schools  in  their  separate 
fiefs,  going  even  so  far  as  to  include  the  sons  of  farmers, 
merchants,  and  artisans  in  the  study  of  the  three  r's. 
Interest  in  literature  virtually  became  rampant,  and  some 
men  issued  hundreds  of  books  on  the  classics,  history,  law, 
astronomy,  and  botany.  Some  authors  are  credited  with 
as  many  as  three  hundred  volumes,  and  some  groups  with 
as  many  as  a  thousand.  The  period  is  considered  by  the 
Japanese  as  the  golden  age  of  literature. 

Though  it  would  be  the  height  of  ignorance  to  assume 
that  Japan  was  an  uncivilized  nation  till  the  coming  of 
the  foreigners,  still  it  is  safe  to  say  that  in  comparison 
with  European  culture  as  derived  from  the  Greek  and 
Latin  scholars  Japan  was  wanting.  In  her  arts  and  indus- 
tries her  beauty  and  charm  were  exceptionally  fine.  But 
it  now  remains  to  be  seen  what  Japan  will  do  with  such 
borrowings  as  she  has  made  from  Europe  and  America. 

With  the  second  coming  of  the  Europeans,  Japan 
entered  upon  a  stage  in  her  history  the  consequences  of 
which  are  as  infinite  as  is  world  progress  itself.  No 
nation  can  live  alone,  and  Japan  has  proved  it.  Had 
she  not  been  so  rudely  wakened  by  American  "push," 
it  is  easy  to  estimate  what  would  have  been  the  unfor- 
tunate state  to  which  she  would  certainly  have  fallen. 
The  stimulus  given  to  education  and  learning  by  a 
sudden  return  to  peace  was  incalculable.  In  learning 


THE  WHITE  MAN  RETURNS  383 

as  well  as  in  natural  law,  perpetual  motion  is  a  dream 
impossible  of  realization.  No  matter  how  eager  a  man 
may  be,  his  scholarship  must  be  revived  by  contact 
with  the  world  about  him.  Japan,  left  to  herself,  could 
not  but  reach  out  to  the  world  beyond  or  die.  And 
when  the  knockers  at  the  gate  were  finally  answered  it 
was  none  too  soon,  for  in  a  little  while  longer  Japan 
would  have  died  of  self -strangulation.  No  wonder,  then, 
that  when  the  pretense  of  not  wanting  foreigners  was 
finally  swept  aside,  Japan  took  to  western  art  and 
thought  like  a  healthy  young  epidemic. 

The  Meiji  era  will  probably  be  the  most  outstanding 
of  all  in  Japanese  history.  Since  the  "sneaking"  away 
to  Europe  for  the  sake  of  an  education,  as  did  Ito  and 
Inouye,  there  has  been  a  steady  stream  of  students  to 
Europe  and  America  from  Japan.  Most  of  these  went 
to  America,  and  every  student  who  returned  came  flushed 
with  the  hope  of  regenerating  his  fellow-countrymen. 
True,  many,  if  not  most,  rapidly  reverted  to  Japanese 
ways  of  thought  and  action.  But  the  consequence  is 
that  now  there  is  hardly  a  subject  either  of  a  practical, 
social,  or  theoretical  nature  that  is  not  being  taught  in 
the  schools  of  Japan.  How  they  are  being  inculcated, 
what  changes  and  transformations  they  undergo  in  the 
hands  of  the  Japanese  in  order  to  adapt  them  to  their 
"special"  needs  and  character,  no  foreigner  will  perhaps 
ever  know.  What  interpretations,  what  trimmings, 
what  refutations  occur  I  cannot  tell  other  than  that  this 
very  thought  is  stimulated  by  the  reports  issued  by  the 
government. 

In  the  government  reports  it  is  interesting  to  read  the 
General  Remarks.  Perhaps  in  no  country  in  the  world 
would  a  Minister  of  Education  preface  his  report  with 
such  a  statement  as  this : 

"In  making  a  record  of  the  chief  affairs  transacted 

during  the  fourth  statistical  year  of  Taisho,  we  dare  say 
25 


384  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

that  the  most  distinguished  fact,  besides  the  work  which 
had  been  carried  on  under  the  old  regime,  is  the  pre- 
paratory measures  for  the  Coronation.  The  selection 
of  the  songs  and  musical  notes  to  celebrate  the  occasion 
in  all  the  schools,  the  compilation  of  the  'outlines  of  the 
Accession  Ceremony'  and  the  observance  of  a  con- 
gratulatory ceremony  in  every  school,  were  the  chief 
undertakings." 

The  whole  of  the  general  remarks  are  such  as  show 
clearly  that  education  in  Japan  is  a  process  of  inculca- 
tion of  the  spirit  considered  by  the  government  to  be 
essential.  Of  course,  every  country  is  more  or  less 
guilty  of  the  same  thing.  For  instance,  we  discovered 
that  all  histories  in  America  were  unduly  severe  in  their 
accounts  of  England's  culpability  to  the  colonies.  But 
these  remarks  are  so  obviously  paternalistic  as  to  evoke 
amusement  and  wrath  alternately. 

It  is  common  knowledge  that  readers  in  the  Japanese 
primary  schools  instil,  with  not  a  little  vim,  faith  in  the 
divinity  of  the  Emperor.  All  books  used  in  the  early 
years  of  childhood  cannot  be  other  than  those  copy- 
righted by  the  government  and  passed  by  it.  In  the 
other  schools  greater  liberty  is  allowed,  and  I  am  indeed 
surprised  at  the  liberality  in  selection  of  books  for 
reading  (in  English)  which  may  be  found  in  higher  school 
libraries,  the  Life  of  Bebel,  Lassalle,  Socialism,  etc.  But 
any  serious  criticism  of  Japan  is  summarily  suppressed. 
Every  Japanese  child  is  said  to  know  about  Washington 
and  Lincoln,  but  as  heroes  only,  not  as  democrats.  Of 
course,  all  governments  the  world  over  are  arbitrary  in 
the  choice  of  books  permitted  in  the  education  of  the 
young,  but  Japan  certainly  seems  to  go  as  far  as  it  is 
possible. 

One  of  the  outstanding  features  of  the  Japanese  educa- 
tional system  is  the  stress  it  lays  upon  the  teaching  of 
such  morals  as  it  deems  advisable.  "A  constitutional 


INNOCULATION  385 

spirit"  and  "national  morality"  are  constantly  reiter- 
ated in  government  reports  of  educational  work,  and  the 
establishment  of  young  men's  societies  (there  are  over 
twenty  thousand  with  a  membership  of  about  three 
million),  and  their  effects,  are  given  account  of  in  fre- 
quent newspaper  reports.  "From  the  point  of  view  of 
a  statesman,"  says  the  last  (43d)  Annual  Report,  "the 
development  of  these  societies  is  most  desirous  on  ac- 
count of  their  contributing  much  to  the  advancement  of 
localities.  If  we  observe  how  Boy  Scouts  in  foreign 
countries  have  been  developed,  and  see,  further,  how 
they  are  of  use  to  the  state,  we  realize  that  more  pains 
must  be  taken  to  promote  young  men's  societies  in 
Japan.  To  this  end  the  Minister  of  Education  in  co- 
operation with  the  Minister  of  Home  Affairs,  despatched 
instructions  to  every  local  government  to  foster  these 
societies  most  suitably,  according  to  local  circumstances, 
and  to  encourage  in  the  members  the  spirit  of  loyalty 
and  filial  piety."  These  societies  have  become  one  of 
the  most  reactionary  forces  in  the  country.  The  extent 
to  which  the  government  goes  out  of  its  way  to  foster 
imperialistic  ideals  is,  to  the  western  way  of  thinking, 
amazing.  Just  before  leaving  Japan  I  made  a  "pil- 
grimage" to  the  national  Shinto  shrines  at  Yamada  Ise. 
These  are  the  special  shrines  of  the  Mikados.  An 
empire  of  school-children  marched  past,  class  by  class, 
halted,  right-faced  at  command;  the  instructor-driller 
took  five  paces  in  front  of  them,  left-faced,  bowed  jerkily 
a  twenty-degree  bow,  took  three  long  goosey  strides, 
kicked  his  heels  together  in  German  fashion,  made  a  forty- 
five-degree  bow,  his  hands  stiffly  at  his  knees,  giving  to 
his  arms  a  mechanical  motion,  retreated  three  steps, 
bowed  again — at  which  all  the  youngsters  also  bowed— 
left-faced,  strutted  to  the  end  of  the  line,  and  ordered 
his  "army"  to  march.  They  turned  about  face  to  the 
left,  straightened  out  their  line  again,  and  repeated  the 


386  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

bowing  in  the  opposite  direction.  Beyond  the  hill 
stands  the  greater  shrine  of  Naiku.  Every  year  thou- 
sands of  the  little  children  of  the  Empire  are  taken  in 
long  trains  from  all  the  ends  of  the  dominion  to  pay 
homage  at  these  shrines  to  the  Mikados. 

With  a  people  like  the  Japanese  this  most  likely 
works  famously,  nor  can  any  one  complain  so  long  as  in 
achieving  their  own  national  ideals  they  do  not  affect 
the  ideals  of  other  nations.  There  is  still  not  a  little 
of  the  clan  spirit  obtaining  in  Japan,  and  the  govern- 
ment aims  to  supplant  the  disintegrating  influence  of 
loyalty  to  one's  feudal  lord  by  loyalty  to  the  Emperor. 
How  these  counter-currents  sometimes  result  in  tragedy 
is  seen  in  the  fate  of  Viscount  Mori,  Minister  of  State 
for  Education  in  1888.  The  Minister  was  a  radical, 
yet  he  was  a  great  leader.  He  dared  to  push  aside  the 
white  sheet  which  hangs  before  the  shrine  at  Ise  to  show 
his  disregard  of  Shintoism  and  its  gods.  Two  years 
later,  on  the  day  of  the  celebration  of  the  granting  of 
the  Constitution,  February  n,  1889,  Arinori  Mori  was 
treacherously  assassinated.  The  murderer  became  the 
hero  of  all  Japan.  When  one  contemplates  these  strange 
turns  Japanese  psychology  takes,  one  is  simply  horrified, 
and  looks  with  fear  upon  a  nation  so  set  in  superstition. 
For  not  only  was  that  the  sentiment  of  the  moment. 
To  this  very  day  the  murderer  is  exalted,  and  Marquis 
Okuma,  the  "Grand  Old  Man"  of  Japan,  last  year 
praised  this  act. 

The  path  of  the  foreign  instructor  in  Japan  is  now  no 
more  the  path  of  glory.  The  days  when  he  was  the  idol 
of  new  Japan  are  gone.  To-day  he  is  an  inconsequen- 
tial drudge.  He  carries  his  "professorship"  with  what 
little  pride  is  left  to  him,  and  is  grateful  to  the  gods  that 
his  years  of  patient  effort  are  not  being  rewarded  with  a 
medal  and  dismissal,  as  has  been  the  case  with  sea- 
captains,  engineers,  and  all  the  other  foreigners  who 


CLAN  INSTINCT  IN  CLASS  387 

have  educated  Japan.  One  of  all  that  vast  troupe  of 
educators  alone  is  still  the  monarch  of  the  regeneration 
of  Japan — and  he  is  the  teacher  of  English.  For  what- 
ever the  genius  of  the  Japanese  may  be  along  other  lines, 
when  it  comes  to  learning  English  it  meets  its  Waterloo. 
So  that  the  way  of  the  English  instructor,  though  minus 
all  the  romance  and  prestige  which  garlanded  his  pred- 
ecessors' way,  is  still  one  of  pleasure  profusely  mixed 
with  pain.  His  days  are  numbered,  however,  and  some 
are  no  more. 

I  had  entered  upon  my  duties  as  instructor  of  English 
in  the  Kobe  Higher  Commercial  School  with  all  sorts  of 
notions  about  methods.  Nothing  in  all  my  life  have  I 
unlearned  so  quickly  as  those  useless  schemes.  One 
very  worldly  schoolmaster,  without  the  shadow  of  an 
illusion  circling  round  his  bald  head,  puts  the  situation 
exquisitely  to  his  students  when  they  ask  him  which  is 
right:  "English  people  say  it  this  way;  Americans, 
that;  Japanese  say  it  as  they  like."  I  was  not  given  a 
single  hint  as  to  how  much  English  the  students  knew 
nor  what  I  should  teach.  And  I  had  to  find  out.  To 
get  them  to  talk  is  as  difficult  as  driving  an  artesian 
well;  you  sometimes  go  a  thousand  feet  through  rock 
and  then  get  no  water.  They  simply  will  not  open 
their  mouths.  Yet  most  of  them  have  had  seven  and 
eight  years  of  English  study.  One  of  the  first  pecul- 
iarities I  noticed  was  that  when  looking  straight  into 
the  eyes  of  a  student,  and  asking  him  a  question,  he 
will  invariably  think  you  are  talking  to  his  neighbor  and 
regard  him  as  the  guilty  person.  And  behind  and 
around  him  half  a  dozen  will  bob  up  as  though  they  had 
been  called  upon.  This  most  likely  comes  from  the 
native  habit  of  never  looking  into  a  man's  eyes  when 
speaking  to  him. 

The  problem  of  teaching  Japanese  boys  is  not  an  easy 
one.  From  the  moment  of  birth,  a  boy  is  not  only  his 


388  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

own  master,  but  master  of  every  one  with  whom  he 
comes  in  contact.  So  that  when  he  comes  to  school  he 
is  the  lordling — and  you  just  try  to  revolutionize  things, 
if  you  can!  Student  strikes  are  quite  frequent  and 
many  a  professor  has  been  forced  out  of  his  position  be- 
cause the  students  didn't  favor  him.  As  a  consequence 
no  student  knows  what  his  grading  is,  nor  which  pro- 
fessor flunked  him.  But  the  students  still  take  matters 
into  their  own  hands  much  earlier.  They  leave  the 
classes  en  masse  if  they  are  in  any  way  displeased  with 
either  the  method  or  subject-matter.  The  strange 
part  of  this  is  that  when  such  a  situation  takes  place  the 
few  earnest  students  will  follow  in  the  wake  of  the  rest. 
Those  who  have  put  in  an  appearance  will  ask  that 
either  the  whole  class  be  marked  present  or  all  absent, 
including  themselves.  This  loyalty  in  defense  of  wrong 
is  illuminating. 

On  the  whole,  however,  I  found  the  students  respectful 
and  earnest,  sometimes  touchingly  so.  Here  and  there 
a  young  man  shows  such  qualities  as  make  a  man 
troubled  less  he  misdirect  him.  Some  are  the  personi- 
fication of  humility  and  gentleness.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  comes  the  boor  whose  boldness  and  impudence  are 
trying  and  puzzling.  They  are  sensitive  to  a  fault. 
The  slightest  correction  of  speech  drives  them  back 
into  a  seclusion  such  as  their  nation  lived  in  for  two 
hundred  and  seventy  years.  They  are  ready  to  criti- 
cize you  or  your  ways.  Wrote  one  student,  "As  above 
said,  taking  note  is  very  uneconomical  and  such  method 
must  be  given  up  at  once."  They  resent  any  method 
which  seems  to  put  them  in  the  elementary  class,  yet 
what  they  know  is  little  more  than  elementary.  I  have 
never  come  across  such  national  self-consciousness  in 
any  people.  They  cannot  write  an  essay  of  twenty 
words  without  using  over  and  over  again  some  reference 
to  Japan  in  the  most  elaborate  terms. 


COMMERCIAL  IMPORTANCE  389 

The  commercial  school  is  of  utmost  importance  in 
Japan.  The  students  are  simply  bursting  with  com- 
mercial ambition.  It  is  business  from  one  thought  to 
another.  Only  eight  hundred  pupils  can  be  accommo- 
dated, but  every  year  there  are  over  two  thousand  appli- 
cants trying  the  entrance  examinations.  Of  these  only 
two  hundred  or  so  gain  admission.  Recently  the  govern- 
ment undertook  to  improve  and  extend  its  educational 
system,  making  of  Higher  Schools  universities.  Intense 
agitation  was  set  going  at  the  Kobe  Higher  Commercial 
School  because  the  status  of  their  rival,  the  Tokyo 
Higher  Commercial  School,  had  been  raised.  Students 
would  discuss  the  university  situation  during  class 
periods,  telling  their  instructors  not  to  hold  the  class, 
because  they  were  busy.  This  went  on  for  a  couple  of 
weeks.  So  far  nothing  definite  has  been  achieved. 

The  meaning  of  this  promotion  is  clear.  Morally 
Japan  is  reverting  to  her  own  conceptions  of  right  and 
wrong,  but  that  will  not  interfere  with  her  acceptance  of 
foreign  ways  of  doing  business.  Japan  frankly  places 
the  Commercial  School  on  a  par  with  schools  of  liberal 
arts,  in  that  following  the  tendencies  becoming  pro- 
nounced even  in  western  countries.  During  the  war 
New  Zealand  spoke  quite  seriously  of  doing  this.  New 
Zealand  reasoned  that  Germany  had  almost  captured 
the  trade  of  the  world  because  commercial  education  was 
part  of  her  system.  And  New  Zealand  did  not  intend 
to  lose  the  advantages  of  a  blood-won  victory  over  a 
superior  German  commercial  educational  system.  But, 
of  course,  though  putting  the  arts  and  sciences  in  the 
background  in  this  way,  New  Zealand  is  western  in 
thought  and  morality.  Japan  is  Oriental.  Japan  ac- 
cepts all  the  sciences  and  practices  in  education  which 
have  made  the  great  western  nations  and  uses  them  to 
foster  her  own  national  ideals.  No  student  of  things 
Japanese  would  for  a  moment  deny  that  Japan  has 


390  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

traits  and  characteristics  which  would  appreciably  help 
in  making  this  a  better  world.  But  along  with  lofty 
ethical  conceptions  comes  the  faith  which  has  been 
christened  bushido,  the  faith  of  the  sword,  which  is  being 
inculcated  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  Japanese  youth. 

For,  in  spite  of  this  absence  of  direct  control,  the 
government  has  a  pretty  firm  hand  on  its  student  body. 
Students  are  much  more  unruly  in  the  lower  schools, 
which  are  controlled  by  the  municipalities  or  by  the 
prefectures.  In  the  higher  government  schools  the 
students  are  not  allowed  to  discuss  politics  or  criticize 
the  government,  though  I  have  on  one  or  two  occasions 
had  them  go  off  at  a  great  rate  in  conversation  classes. 
I  was  once  listening  to  an  embryo  orator  rehearse  his 
oration.  He  had  to  refer  to  the  rice  riots  in  a  word  of 
warning  to  the  world,  but  would  do  so  only  as  "the 
event  of  last  summer."  I  told  him  it  would  be  more 
definite  to  say  "rice  riots,"  but  he  declined,  saying  that 
even  mention  of  the  word  "riot"  was  prohibited  in  the 
school. 

Sometimes,  when  I  came  into  the  cold,  dirty  class- 
rooms, my  heart  sickened.  The  dust,  dirt,  and  dilapi- 
dated desks  and  squeaky  floors — cheerless,  colorless,  and 
not  odorless — I  could  have  fled  in  despair.  And  the  ill- 
clad,  untidy,  black-uniformed  students  aroused  my  pity. 
The  janitor  was  in  the  habit  of  pouring  water  on  the 
wooden  floors  and  mats  at  9  A.M.  instead  of  sweeping  the 
halls  and  rooms,  so  that  the  place  was  cold  and  dungeon- 
like.  I  once  asked  a  native  professor  why  this  was 
done.  "You  see,  Japanese  are  not  so  sensitive  to  cold 
as  you  foreigners,"  he  answered.  I  thought  of  the 
padded  coats  and  shawls,  so  common  to  both  male 
and  female  attire  in  Japan,  the  frozen  fingers,  and  the 
shivering — and  smiled  at  the  chronic  vanity  of  these 
people. 

The  life  of  the  student  is  not  to  be  envied.     It  means 


STUDENT  LIFE  PATHETIC  391 

years  and  years  of  grinding  application  to  work,  with  not 
always  a  lucrative  reward  in  the  end.  Most  of  the 
students  seem  pathetically  poor,  their  health  is  not  of 
the  best,  and  one  often  contemplates  the  seeming  priva- 
tions with  sadness.  This  is  doubtless  due  to  some 
extent  to  the  fact  that  they  are  compelled  to  wear 
foreign  black  uniforms  with  military  collars,  which  are 
generally  ill-fitting  and  cheap,  secondary  garments,  as 
it  were,  to  those  native  to  them.  Hygienically,  their 
own  would  be  much  more  serviceable. 

They  live  very  cheaply,  the  average  cost  of  a  month's 
schooling  being  about  thirty  yen  for  board  and  all. 
Some  live  with  country  people  round  about  or  in  board- 
ing-houses, at  which  they  pay  about  twelve  yen  ($6) 
a  month  for  food  and  lodging.  At  the  school  dormitory 
they  are  housed  for  two  yen  a  month,  and  their  board 
comes  to  about  fifteen  yen.  The  poverty  of  some  is 
extreme. 

The  general  educational  work  of  the  country  differs 
from  that  in  other  countries.  Though  at  first  modeled 
after  the  American  educational  ideals,  it  later  fell  under 
the  influence  of  German  practice.  The  period  of  school- 
ing extends  from  the  seventh  to  the  twenty-fourth  year, 
and  no  student  graduates  before  the  latter  age.  To 
attain  a  doctor's  degree  requires  hard  study  up  to  a 
man's  thirtieth  year.  All  subjects  are  compulsory. 
Students  put  in  from  thirty  to  thirty-two  hours  class- 
work  a  week,  besides  a  considerable  amount  of  collateral 
reading  and  home-work  which  is  entailed.  That  this 
has  been  the  cause  of  many  a  ruined  constitution  is 
almost  proverbial  with  the  students.  Ask  them  to 
write  a  composition  about  the  value  of  exercise,  and  all 
seem  faced  with  the  same  fear  of  breakdown  in  health. 

Education  in  the  East  is  essentially  a  lecture  system; 
that  is,  the  student  listens  and  absorbs  what  he  can. 
He  follows  the  professor,  trying  to  take  down  as  copious 


392  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

notes  as  it  is  possible  with  such  an  inconvenient  system 
of  writing  as  Japanese.  There  are  only  two  Higher 
Commercial  Schools  in  the  country,  and  to  them  students 
flock  from  all  over  Japan  and  even  from  Korea  and 
China.  Some  try  the  examinations  over  and  over  again, 
even  after  their  thirtieth  year. 

The  total  number  of  schools  in  the  Empire  is  38,000; 
of  teachers,  196,000;  of  students,  8,540,437;  and  of 
graduates,  1,514,038.  This  for  the  year  1915-16,  and 
shows  an  increase  over  the  previous  year  of  660  schools, 
4,432  teachers,  264,761  students,  and  45,682  graduates. 

There  are  68  schools  for  deaf,  dumb,  and  blind,  62 
of  which  are  private.  They  taught  music,  acupuncture, 
and  massaging  to  2,645  pupils  during  1915-16,  but  this 
is  only  a  bare  fraction  of  the  total  number.  The  number 
of  blind  people  seen  wandering  about  in  the  hustle  and 
bustle  of  unregulated  street  traffic  without  being  run 
down  is  simply  amazing. 

Girls  receive  instruction  just  the  same  as  do  the  boys, 
and  there  are  two  Higher  Normal  Schools  for  women — 
one  in  Tokyo,  the  other  in  Nara.  These  aim  to  teach 
women  literature,  science,  and  domestic  accomplish- 
ments, specializing  in  such  subjects  as  students  may 
elect  which  are  not  contrary  to  the  educational  policy. 
Kindergartening  and  nursing  are  among  the  special 
courses.  All  students  must  be  over  seventeen  and 
under  twenty- two  years  of  age,  and  unmarried.  There 
are  schools  for  almost  every  branch  of  learning — literary, 
scientific,  and  technical. 

As  to  school  hygiene,  the  government  confesses  that 
"it  must  be  owned  that  the  result  is  far  below  perfec- 
tion," in  spite  of  its  increased  efforts.  Knowing  what 
poverty  and  hunger  prevail  among  the  poor  in  our  own 
schools,  I  have  wondered  not  a  little  what  it  must  be 
here.  The  following  is  of  interest:  "As  regards  the 
development  of  the  spinal  column,  constitution,  and 


SCHOOL  HYGIENE  393 

eyesight  of  students  and  pupils  in  the  institutions 
under  the  direct  control  of  the  department,  they  cannot 
be  given  a  word,  owing  to  the  difference  of  the  school, 
sex,  age,  etc.  Generally  speaking,  there  was  an  increase 
of  male  students  and  pupils  who  had  strong  or  weak 
constitutions,  when  compared  with  the  previous  year, 
and  a  decrease  of  the  medium,  and  in  female  pupils  the 
case  was  the  reverse;  while  respecting  the  development 
of  the  spinal  column,  those  who  had  abnormally  curved 
columns  decreased  in  male  students  and  pupils,  and 
increased  in  female  pupils.  As  to  eyesight,  there  was  an 
increase  in  both  sexes  of  those  who  were  defective  in  one 
or  both  eyes."  The  general  tendency  as  regards  cases 
of  illness  that  year  was  "a  little  worse  than  last  year," 
says  the  report.  Out  of  21,735  children  examined,  54.5 
per  cent  had  decayed  teeth. 

One  of  the  first  things  in  hygiene  the  Japanese  will 
have  to  learn  is  how  to  live  in  foreign-styled  houses,  as 
most  of  the  schools  are  built  that  way.  Unaccustomed 
to  the  use  of  foreign  clothing,  especially  shoes,  they 
encounter  one  of  the  first  evils.  The  dust  kept  down  by 
perpetual  sprinkling  of  the  floors  must  be  a  strain  on  the 
strongest  constitution,  yet  they  seem  to  pride  them- 
selves in  the  practice  of  such  methods  as  invoke  the  law 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

There  is  considerable  dissatisfaction  with  the  methods 
of  education  in  vogue,  just  as  there  is  with  us,  and  this 
will  tend  to  increase  until  those  who  have  hitherto  been 
dependent  upon  foreigners  for  direction  and  advice 
learn  to  handle  the  tasks  they  have  but  recently 
assumed.  Hard  as  it  is  for  those  foreigners  who  find 
their  services  only  half  appreciated,  still  for  the  good  of 
Japan  it  must  be  admitted  the  present  assumptions  of 
native  teachers  are  the  best  for  the  future  of  education 
in  Japan.  A  Japanese  teacher  must  protect  himself 
against  the  competition  of  the  foreigner  (especially  in 


394  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

European  languages).     The  results  of  native  effort  are 
often  most  amusing. 

The  Emperor's  birthday  is  an  occasion  for  more  than 
mere  cessation  of  work  or  school.  Throughout  all  the 
institutions  the  portraits  of  the  Emperor  and  Empress 
and  Crown  Prince  are  set  upon  the  platforms,  veiled. 
At  our  school  the  faculty  stands  before  it,  in  front  of  the 
assemblage  of  students.  The  director,  in  full-dress 
with  gilt  embroidery  and  sword,  takes  his  place,  half 
facing  the  portrait  and  half  the  assembly.  At  a  word 
from  one  of  the  faculty  the  students  rise  to  be  wel- 
comed. Then  the  Kimigaya  (national  anthem)  is  sung.  So 
sacred  is  this  hymn  that  singing  it  has  been  prohibited 
except  on  national  occasions.  Without  formal  an- 
nouncement, the  director  steps  solemnly  in  front  of  us 
to  where  he  faces  the  pictures;  then,  just  upon  the 
sound  of  "yowa"  in  the  song,  he  advances,  and  upon 
the  word  "sazareishi"  he  pulls  the  curtains  aside, 
having  at  due  intervals  bowed  reverently.  The  song 
is  sung  twice  over,  a  lacquer  box  is  opened  and  the 
Imperial  Rescript  on  Education  is  read: 

Know  ye,  Our  subjects: 

Our  Imperial  Ancestors  have  founded  Our  Empire  on  a  basis  broad 
and  everlasting  and  have  deeply  and  firmly  implanted  virtue;  Our 
subjects,  ever  united  in  loyalty  and  filial  piety,  have  from  generation 
to  generation  illustrated  the  beauty  thereof.  This  is  the  glory  of  the 
fundamental  character  of  Our  Empire,  and  herein  also  lies  the  source 
of  Our  education.  Ye,  Our  subjects,  be  filial  to  your  parents,  affec- 
tionate to  your  brothers  and  sisters;  as  husbands  and  wives  be  har- 
monious, as  friends  true;  bear  yourselves  in  modesty  and  moderation; 
extend  your  benevolence  to  all;  pursue  learning  and  cultivate  arts, 
and  thereby  develop  intellectual  faculties  and  perfect  moral  powers; 
furthermore  advance  public  good  and  promote  common  interests; 
always  respect  the  Constitution  and  observe  the  laws;  should  emer- 
gency arise,  offer  yourselves  courageously  to  the  State;  and  thus 
guard  and  maintain  the  propriety  of  Our  Imperial  Throne  coeval  with 
heaven  and  earth.  So  shall  ye  be  not  only  Our  good  and  faithful  sub- 
jects, but  render  illustrious  the  best  traditions  of  your  forefathers. 


PICTURE  REVERENCE  395 

The  way  here  set  forth  is  indeed  the  teaching  bequeathed  by  Our 
Imperial  Ancestors,  to  be  observed  alike  by  Their  Descendants  and 
the  subjects,  infallible  for  all  ages  and  true  in  all  places.  It  is  Our 
wish  to  lay  it  to  heart  in  all  reverence,  in  common  with  you,  Our 
subjects,  that  we  may  all  thus  attain  to  the  same  virtue.  The  3oth 
day  of  the  xoth  month  of  the  23d  year  of  Meiji  (1890). 

After  a  short  address  by  one  of  the  faculty  and  the 
reading  of  a  slight  paper  by  a  student,  the  ceremony  is 
over — and  the  curtains  are  again  drawn  across  the  por- 
traits. There  is  nothing  shabby  nor  affected  about  it. 
It  is  done  thoroughly  and  properly  and  with  reverence. 

I  had  once  unwittingly  led  a  class  in  general  discussion 
from  one  thing  to  another  until,  under  current  events, 
I  contrasted  the  freedom  of  movement  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States  with  the  King  of  England.  It 
had  been  reported  that  returned  soldiers  on  parade 
broke  ranks  and  shook  hands  with  the  King.  I  then 
contrasted  the  easy  simplicity  of  Prince  Arthur  with  the 
rigid  formalism  of  Prince  Nashimoto,  both  of  whom  I 
had  seen  while  stopping  at  the  Nara  Hotel  one  summer. 
Then  I  added  that  formerly,  when  their  Emperor  passed, 
they  were  not  allowed  to  look  at  him,  any  one  caught  so 
doing  being  in  danger  of  losing  his  eyes.  Even  to-day 
no  one  can  be  on  an  open  balcony,  but  must  be  on  the 
ground  when  royalty  goes  by.  I  made  no  comment 
on  this.  Up  spoke  one  student,  "You  must  not 
mention  our  Emperor  in  the  same  breath  with  kings 
and  presidents." 

Picture  reverence  is  not  limited  to  royalty.  One  of 
the  instructors  had  died  while  in  New  York,  and  we 
received  cabled  information.  Everybody  assembled — 
as  is  done  only  on  special  occasions — and  we  appeared 
in  frock-coats.  The  man's  wife  and  children  came. 
A  large  portrait,  framed,  was  set  upon  the  platform, 
speeches  were  made  to  it  and  to  the  assemblage.  But 
most  effective  of  all  was  the  reading  of  an  address  by 


396  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

one  of  the  students,  from  sheets  almost  the  size  of  a 
newspaper.  His  tall  body,  ill-fitting  clothes,  and  worn, 
unpolished  boots,  made  of  him  a  most  pathetic  figure. 
He  bowed,  looked  at  the  picture,  and  commenced  read- 
ing. I  have  never  heard  a  more  effective  address. 
His  voice  at  times  fell  to  a  whisper  as  though  choked 
with  emotion,  and  when  it  rose  there  seemed  to  be  a 
mustering  of  earnestness.  No  one  need  say  the  Jap- 
anese show  no  emotion.  Throughout  the  assembly 
faces  of  students  were  red  with  weeping,  and  one  visitor 
was  grieved  to  tears.  The  wife  smiled  sadly.  And  in 
his  soft,  well-modulated  voice  the  student  went  on. 
Every  time  he  said  the  word  sensei  (teacher)  one  felt 
a  world  of  love  had  gone  out  to  cheer  his  departed 
instructor. 

So  strongly  developed  is  their  national  pride  that 
when  in  a  play  given  by  the  students  they  represented 
Caesar  and  other  great  generals  kneeling  before  Emma, 
the  ruler  of  their  underworld,  the  student  dressed  as 
Hideyoshi  wouldn't  kneel  as  did  the  others. 

Indeed,  one  of  the  most  offensive  traits  of  the  Japanese 
is  this  chauvinistic  self-conceit.  One  cannot  read  a 
statement  that  is  not  simply  stuffed  with  self-glorifi- 
cation. In  Japan  to  America,1  by  Japanese  notables, 
one  is  amazed  at  the  naivete.  Such  statements  fairly 
stare  at  one  out  of  the  pages:  "They  look  upon  their 
kings  or  emperors  as  sovereign  apparently  as  we  do; 
but — to  speak  figuratively — theirs  are  the  hat,  while 
ours  is  the  head."  "The  Japanese  are  a  people 
with  peculiar  characteristics."  "While  we  are  busily 
engaged  in  importing  good  things  from  foreign  coun- 
tries, we  are  not  foolish  enough  to  forget  the  beautiful 
characteristics  original  with  Japan.  Below  I  shall 
enumerate  a  few  of  our  characteristics."  "So  in  Japan 


Japan  to  America,  edited  by  Naochi  Masaoka. 


FALSE  DIGNITY  397 

there  is  no  need  for  such  an  undertaking  as  the  ethical 
movement  that  is  seen  in  Europe  and  America.  We  are 
practising  what  is  preached  in  these  ethical  movements." 
"We  are  not  fettered  by  traditions  and  conventionalities. 
.  .  .Thus  in  forty  or  fifty  years  we  have  arrived  at  the 
present  condition  of  perfection,  after  so  many  changes 
and  reforms."  "In  this  respect,  our  system  may  be 
superior  to  that  of  European  schools,  whose  relations  to 
one  another  have  been  a  process  of  growth."  "In 
short,  Japanese  education  is  the  most  democratic  of  all 
the  nations  in  the  world."  "There  is  much  more  that 
I  should  like  to  say  about  Japanese  education,  but  lack 
of  space  forbids."  And  there  is  three-quarters  of  a 
blank  page  beneath  it. 

The  beauty  and  wonder  and  excellence  of  Japanese 
education  exist  largely  in  the  minds  of  the  proud  edu- 
cators. The  exaggerations  which  have  gone  abroad 
about  the  pS-per-cent  attendance  must  be  understood 
in  the  light  of  examples.  Japan  has  done  remarkably 
well,  but  there  is  no  need  of  putting  on  a  false  face. 
Pride  in  what  they  have  already  done  is  amply  justified; 
but  not  boasting.  The  result  is  a  hampering  of  such 
faculties  as  would  otherwise  yield  readily  enough  to 
training.  The  outstanding  fact  of  Japanese  linguistic 
failure  is  proof  of  this  assertion.  Were  they  more 
modest  in  their  assumptions  they  would  acquire  a  better 
grasp  of  a  language;  but  pride,  sensitiveness  to  a  fault, 
keeps  them  from  using  what  they  know  or  accepting 
correction  in  what  they  don't  know.  Again  this  may 
be  regarded  as  somewhat  of  a  universal  trait,  but  it  is 
more  generally  true  in  Japan. 

There  have  been  innumerable  examples  of  Japanese 
English.  I  could  produce  a  volume  which  would  be 
most  illuminating.  A  psychoanalyst  would  laugh  at 
the  attempted  secrecy  so  peculiar  to  these  people,  for 
in  their  unwitting  use  of  words  their  unconscious  is 


398  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

easily  revealed.     But  here  only  the  grammatical  and 
humorous  phases  will  be  regarded. 

A  student  in  a  commercial-practice  class  wrote, 
"Hideyoshi  built  the  castle  in  Osaka  and  in  that  castle 
he  engaged  in  advertisement."  Another,  "Will  you  be 
so  kind  as  to  pay  us  in  three  days  in  order  to  make  us 
sorry  to  stop  business  transaction  with  you  hereafter." 
But  for  a  pleasant  insight  into  what  they  think  of  their 
own  educational  advantages,  here  is  a  speech  delivered 
by  one  young  man  before  an  audience  in  the  English- 
speaking  society: 

DEFECTS  OF  OUR  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN: 

You  must  widely  open  our  eyes  and  must  look  into  Our  Educational 
System.  This  is,  I  believe,  one  of  the  most  important  problems  when 
our  Educational  reform  and  expansion  are  going  to  be  made.  Surely, 
you  will  find  out  many  evil  influences,  but  I  think,  I  have  a  privilledge 
in  stating  clearly  and  proving  my  words  with  utmost  indifference. 
Because  I  am  a  student.  I  am  a  student  under  the  present  educa- 
tional system  in  which  I  have  been  taught  these  16  years. 

Really,  schools  in  Japan  are  the  productions  of  mechanical  process 
applied  in  our  education.  At  the  age  of  handicraft,  some  4  centuries 
ago,  articles  were  made  one  by  one  by  the  hands  of  workman,  but 
at  the  present  industrial  age  articles  are  made  on  a  large  scale.  Such 
method,  as  manufacturing  a  great  mass  of  articles  was  applied  to  our 
educational  system  and  there,  we  found  out  our  beloved  schools. 
However,  I  have  now  an  appeal  to  you  which  you  must  never  forget. 
That  is,  human  beings  are  not  articles  in  any  way,  so,  they  should  not 
be  treated  like  articles.  Don't  you  find  any  such  tendency  in  our 
educational  System?  Indeed,  the  only  way  to  refine  our  System  is, 
to  exclude  evil  influences,  caused  by  such  a  mass  producting  method 
as  fast  as  we  can  and  the  smaller  the  defects,  the  better  is  the  school. 

From  our  point  of  view,  the  endowment  of  each  boy  seems  to  be 
equal,  but  we  find  a  good  difference  of  capacity  after  they  become  7 
or  8  yrs.  old.  This,  I  believe,  is  due  to  the  influence  of  their  environ- 
mental education.  While,  if  we  consider  this  matter  more  seriously, 
we  will  find  out  many  defects  in  our  system.  Our  boys  are  pressed 
vigorously  not  to  gain  an  opportunity  of  up  starting.  I  think  you 
have  stil  in  mind  the  disturbance  among  the  teachers  of  primary 


a  o 
o  -=1 


A  STUDENT'S  OPINION  399 

schools  in  Kyoto.  This  was  no  other  than  the  matter  that  a  bright 
boy  was  allowed  a  special  promotion  in  his  course  of  study.  Of 
course,  such  a  promotion  is  thought  to  be  unreasonable  in  our  prensent 
educational  system,  but  there  must  be  a  proper  institute  for  the  clever 
boy  to  give  the  opportunity  of  starting  upward. 

We  will  now  discuss  our  middle  school  education.  There  we  find, 
all  the  boys  are  forced  to  receive  the  same  education.  Boys  who  are 
anxious  to  proceed  to  university,  boys  who  wish  to  follow  up  their 
father's  business,  boys  who  has  scientific  genius  or  boys  who  has  a 
peculiar  instinct  for  art  and  literature,  they  are  all  restricted  to  obey 
the  iron  rules  of  our  educational  system.  Therefore  a  boy  who  has  a 
superior  ability  knowledge  for  philosophical  matters  but  not  so  in 
mathematics  must  leave  the  school,  for  his  failure  in  the  examination. 
Such  a  tragedy  is  often  seen  in  our  middle  schools.  We  should 
exclude  this  bad  system  of  losing  many  prominent  students.  Proverb 
says,  a  precocious  boy  at  10,  a  clever  at  15,  a  common  at  20.  This, 

1  think,  is  repeated  quite  occasionally  among  our  young  men.    Gen- 
erally, a  boy  if  he  is  healthy  in  mind,  has  a  strong  desire  for  intel- 
lectual pursuit  but  only  a  problem  must  be  consedered  in  this  case. 
That  is,  whether  his  interest  for  knowledge  continues  to  a  very  long 
time  or  whether  he  is  put  into  a  circumstance  of  intellectual  freedom 
in  which  he  is  easily  supplied  knowledge  as  he  wishes  to  have.    Of 
course,  a  boy  in  that  environment  is  sure  to  become  a  great  man. 

Dr.  Wener,  a  professor  in  the  Harverd  University  is  the  man  who 
has  been  trying  his  son  in  this  way  and,  he  has  brought  about  a  re- 
markable affair.  His  son  named,  Nower,  entered  the  Taff  Univer- 
sity at  10  yrs.  old.  received  a  degree  of  Dr  of  Philosophy  at  15  yrs. 
old.  After  that,  he  studied  in  the  Cambridge  University  for  about 

2  yrs.  and  returned  to  America.     He  was  afterwards  appointed  to 
the  professor  of  Philosophy  in  the  Haiverd  University.     Really  he 
was  then  yet  20  yrs.  of  old.     Such  a  method  of  education  adapted  by 
Dr.  Wener  is  never  a  new  one.     In  olden  times,  thus  was  common 
among  Greeks.     If  you  read  the  Greek  history  you  will  amaze  to 
find  many  geniuses,  as  if  we  see  thousands  of  stars  in  the  night  of 
Autumn  sky.    This  is  certainly  due  to  the  good  breeding  among  the 
Greeks. 

If  our  ideal  is  named  "the  genius  education"  that  is,-  to  let  a  boy 
induce  to  have  interest  for  considertion  for  natural  principles  and 
give  him  a  sufficient  knowledge  as  he  demands  and  kindle  a  fire  on 
the  top  of  his  endowments!  I  now  say,  for  the  sake  of  boys  of  real 
ability,  we  must  ulter  our  institute  so  as  to  enable  them  to  under  the 
university  at  10  yrs.  old.  At  present,  cramming  seems  to  be  the 
only  mottoe  in  our  education  especial  in  the  middle  schools.  Why 

26 


400  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

we  can  devote  ourselves  to  our  lessons?  Such  method  of  teaching, 
can  only  educate  fools,  only  fools.  Of  course,  this  is  due  to  the  mis- 
understanding of  teachers,  the  most  natural  and  the  most  important 
thing  in  education  is,  not  merely  cramming  but  far  more  necessary 
is  to  cultivate  the  ability  of  students,  and  lead  them  easily  to  acquire 
new  knowledge.  In  other  words,  the  means  of  education  must  be 
the  systematic  training  of  the  brain  on  the  part  of  students.  This 
method,  I  believe,  has  a  remarkable  good  result,  that  is,  to  enable 
boys  to  use  their  penetrate  judgement  and  reasoning.  From  this 
point  of  view  we  don't  need  so  many  lessons  as  we  have  now. 

I  have  told  you  that  schools  in  Japan  are  the  production  of  me- 
chanical process  applied  in  education  but  the  one  who  has  brought 
about  this  process  is  certainly  the  economic  principles.  While  if  we 
consider  like  this,  without  money,  the  school  education  must  be  lim- 
itted'to  a  certain  sphere.  The  substancial  scarcity,  is  one  of  our 
present  difficulties  in  our  educational  matters. 

There  are  so  many  of  teachers  who  deplore  their  ill-treatment  and 
a  good  number  of  patriots  who  are  grieving  of  the  public  for  their 
indifference  for  educational  matters.  But  what  is  the  origin  of  their 
ill-treatment?  or  what  has  caused  the  public  indifference?  Their 
are  a  few  who  understand  these.  In  our  country  there  is  a  party  who 
are  always  oppressing  the  educational  expansion.  They  fear,  this 
expansion,  for  the  safe  guard  of  their  bodies.  They  usually  take  away 
a  greater  part  of  the  national  expenditures  and  leave  a  small  portion 
to  the  educational  undertaking.  We  are  told  that  the  present 
Governmental  schools  can  be  doubled  by  the  money,  wasted  by  the 
explosion  of  late  battle  ship  "Kawachi." 

We  must,  now,  from  this  moment,  push  in  to  the  heart  of  our  edu- 
cation and  improve  the  defects  of  our  system.  I  now  say,  "Open 
your  Eyes",  "Penetrate  the  defects  decisively  and  earnestly  hope 
you  will  reflect  upon  your  mind. 

I  thank  you  for  your  kind  attention. 

Difficult  of  management,  proud  and  unyielding, 
proud  in  their  superiority  to  their  own  uneducated 
brethren  and  proud  in  the  consciousness  of  belonging  to 
a  proud  race,  Japanese  students  provoke  one  to  intense 
dislike.  Yet  when  you  meet  them  in  private  and  learn 
to  know  what  they  think  and  aspire  to,  you  find  among 
them  types  not  easily  duplicated  in  any  country.  When 
I  announced  my  resignation  from  my  position,  class 
after  class  simply  flooded  my  ears  with  rhetorical  re- 


SENTIMENTALISM  401 

grets,  but  when  I  put  them  to  the  test  which  determines 
the  sincerity  of  most  associations  I  found  that  all  the 
sentimentalism  vanished  in  thin  air.  During  the  war 
they  strutted  the  word  "democracy"  about.  The  wave 
of  liberalism  which  swept  over  the  country  found  its 
greatest  response  in  the  students.  The  franchise  was 
demanded  by  them  throughout  the  country.  But  it 
petered  out  as  a  class  issue — they  as  students  rather 
than  the  people  as  a  whole  should  be  liberated.  How- 
ever, the  students  are  the  leaven  of  freedom  in  Japan. 
At  times  lovable  and  openly  affectionate,  ready  to  senti- 
mentalize over  you,  one  never  gets  away  from  the  feeling 
that  they  are  using  you  for  special  advantages  in  the 
study  of  English.  Missionaries  have  found  this  to  be 
true  to  such  an  extent  that  they  now  conduct  their  ser- 
vices largely  in  Japanese,  realizing  that  the  sop  of  English 
study  produced  conversion  too  readily.  I  may  sound 
severe,  but  I  am  only  trying  to  give  as  true  a  picture  of 
the  Japanese  as  I  can. 


XXVII 

SUPPRESSION 

Press    Censorship 

|ITH  the  whole  world  practising  press  cen- 
sorship, it  seems  hardly  fair  to  pick  out  one 
particular  country  for  special  observation 
or  criticism.  Whether  Japan  is  better  or 
worse  than  any  other  country  in  her  effort 
to  keep  thought  in  check  is  debatable.  One  thing  she 
is  beyond  measure— unique.  We  of  the  West  do  not 
exempt  a  man  from  punishment  because  he  didn't 
know  the  law,  but  we  generally  so  promulgate  our  laws 
as  to  make  it  possible  for  the  law-abiding  to  steer  a  safe 
course.  Not  so  in  the  case  of  publicity  in  Japan. 
There,  no  matter  how  willing  a  person  may  be  to  re- 
spect certain  existing  statutes,  their  interpretation 
in  accordance  with  whim  makes  obedience  well-nigh 
impossible. 

For  instance.  You  are  a  publisher  of  a  foreign  news- 
paper. You  have  lived  for  years  in  the  country,  re- 
spected and  feared.  You  have  tried  to  understand  the 
ways  of  the  people  among  whom  you  have  chosen  to 
live.  You  insist,  however,  on  publishing  news  when  it 
comes  to  you. 

But,  "No,"  says  the  censor.  "You  may  surely  pub- 
lish news,  but  you  must  take  your  chances  in  the  matter. 
It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  news  you  publish  in  your 
newspaper  may  not  be  to  our  advantage,  and  in  conse- 
quence it  will  be  suppressed," 


A  SIMPLE  CENSOR  403 

"But  if  that  is  the  case,"  you  plead,  "kindly  tell  us 
what  kind  of  news  we  may  not  publish." 

"That  we  cannot  do,"  admits  the  censor,  "for  we  do 
not  know  what  news  will  come  in  for  you  to  publish." 
And,  indeed,  even  a  censor  will  admit  his  ignorance 
sometimes,  and  not  all  can  be  expected  to  be  prophets. 

"Then,"  you  pray,  "will  you  please  tell  us  what  of 
that  news  we  have  already  published  is  objectionable. 
Point  out  specifically  why  you  have  suppressed  our 
issue?" 

"That  is  also  impossible,"  says  the  censor  (or,  to  be 
exact,  the  police  official  who  happens  to  have  been 
detailed  on  that  job),  "because,  if  we  did  that,  then  you 
might  make  use  of  the  point  in  an  indirect  way  and  thus 
expose  our  desire  for  secrecy." 

"Then  what  shall  I  do,"  says  the  editor,  despairingly, 
or  turns  to  his  desk  with  an  idea. 

Publishing  news,  like  everything  else  in  Japan,  is  an 
altogether  new  thing.  During  Japan's  seclusion  from 
world  contact  there  was  no  news  to  publish.  Even 
curiosity  was  killed.  If  on  occasion  some  leading  lord 
had  a  quarrel  with  another  lord  and  one  of  the  lords' 
heads  came  off,  well,  it  was  not  such  an  unusual  event  as 
to  require  large  type.  That  little  world  could  live  and 
wait  until  some  historian-playwright  would  turn  the 
incident  out  in  dramatic  form.  Then  another  would 
print  it,  a  third  would  memorize  it  and  proceed  to 
recite  passages  from  it  to  such  crowds  as  dared  to  gather. 
And  copies  would  be  sold. 

Since  then  a  Mr.  Black  has  been  to  Japan  and  has 
taught  them  how  to  publish  news.  Consequently  ideas 
spread  so  rapidly  that  the  government  became  alarmed. 
They  offered  Mr.  Black  an  easy  job.  Well,  like  the  dog 
and  the  piece  of  meat,  he  soon  learned  what  it  is  to  take 
a  well-paying  job  that  didn't  exist. 


4o4  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

The  trials  of  the  foreign  editor  above  described  are 
not  phases  of  racial  discrimination.  The  native  editor 
knows  as  little  what  he  may  do  with  his  paper  as  does 
anybody  else.  So  true  is  this  that  each  newspaper  which 
regards  its  editor  as  more  useful  in  the  office  than  in 
jail  keeps  a  "dummy  editor"  on  the  job,  who,  though 
seldom  in  the  office,  is  ready  and  pleased  to  be  in  jail  as 
occasion  demands. 

It  doesn't  always  pan  out  that  way,  as  Mr.  Maruyama 
of  the  Osaka  Asahi  (Osaka  Morning  Sun}  can  bear 
witness.  When  the  question  of  sending  troops  to 
Siberia  came  up,  he — plain,  ordinary,  unknowing  editor 
and  proprietor  (or  president)  of  the  largest  newspaper 
in  Japan — dared  to  say  that  he  didn't  approve  of  this 
expedition.  And  he  said  it  without  honorifics.  Well, 
did  his  "dummy  editor"  just  quietly  go  to  jail?  Alas! 
things  have  changed  in  the  Land  of  the  Rising  Sun. 
There  is  now  a  group  of  young  ruffians  called  the  soshi 
whose  patriotism  knows  no  bounds.  They  will  die  for 
their  Emperor  and  the  government — even  if  they  have 
to  take  some  erring  Nipponese  along  with  them  for 
judgment  before  the  divine  ancestors.  And  so  these 
soshi,  young  and  sprightly,  made  an  attack  on  the 
venerable  Mr.  Maruyama,  beat  him  up  as  far  as 
their  courage  held  out,  and  went  their  ways.  Mr. 
Maruyama  had  them  arrested.  A  number  of  them  were 
found  "guilty"  and  sentenced  to  three  years'  imprison- 
ment. And  when  all  the  form  was  duly  carried  out  and 
all  the  available  honorifics  exhausted  to  soothe  the 
injured  feelings  of  Mr.  Maruyama  (his  bones  needed 
some  more  substantial  balm) — their  sentence  was 
stayed  on  promise  of  good  behavior.  Considering  that 
their  organization  is  fostered  by  the  government,  one 
need  not  exert  much  mental  energy  to  decide  on  the 
meaning  of  good. 

This  occurred  under  the  Ministry  of  Count  Terauchi. 


A  CASUAL  REMARK  405 

Months  went  by.  Count  Terauchi  resigned  on  account 
of  ' '  illness. ' '  Whether  it  was  a  physical  or  political  com- 
plaint no  one  took  the  trouble  to  diagnose.  But  Mr. 
Kara,  the  man  of  the  people,  became  Prime  Minister, 
and  one  of  the  first  things  he  promised  was  relief  from 
unfair  press  censorship.  As  in  the  case  of  the  word 
"good,"  however,  the  definition  of  unfair  is  problemat- 
ical. The  first  thing  Premier  Hara  did  was  to  follow  in 
his  predecessor's  footsteps,  as  a  very  cautious  politician 
should.  His  gray  hairs  and  swarthy  complexion  are 
not  without  just  reason  for  their  existence. 

The  editor  of  the  Osaka  Asahi  was  assaulted  during 
the  Terauchi  administration.  Mr.  Hara,  shortly  after 
his  investiture,  asked  that  editor  to  come  to  Tokyo  for 
a  "chat"  and  received  a  "voluntary"  promise  that  his 
disloyal  attitude  would  not  appear  again.  During  the 
Terauchi  administration,  an  issue  of  The  Japan  Chronicle 
in  Kobe  was  suppressed  for  reprinting  from  The  North- 
China  Daily  News  a  reference  to  the  famous  Twenty-one 
Demands;  during  the  first  months  of  Mr.  Hara's 
Ministry  the  editor  of  the  little  Kobe  Herald  was  sen- 
tenced to  six  months'  imprisonment  and  five  hundred 
yen  fine  for  reprinting  from  The  Pekin  Gazette  an  article 
by  Mr.  Putnam  Weale  in  which  a  casual  reference  was 
made  to  the  Emperor  as  being  ' '  inexperienced. ' '  During 
the  rice  riots  which  precipitated  the  downfall  of  Terau- 
chi, mention  of  them  was  at  first  prohibited ;  in  Hara's 
day,  now  that  Korea  has  taken  to  rioting  on  a  large 
scale,  The  Japan  Chronicle  says,  "The  suppression  of 
the  press  has  hindered  the  government  from  knowing 
what  is  going  on,  though  it  knew  long  before  the  present 
trouble  broke  out  that  it  was  brewing,  for  it  issued  instruc- 
tions that  nothing  was  to  be  mentioned  on  the  subject.'' 
And  on  March  1/j.th  last  The  Japan  Advertiser  (Tokyo) 
was  suppressed  for  reprinting  a  manifesto  from  Japanese 
socialists  to  socialists  in  Europe  protesting  against  Jap- 


4o6  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

anese  troops  being  sent  to  Siberia  and  expressing  sym- 
pathy with  the  Russian  revolution.  The  sentence  said  to 
have  caused  the  trouble  was,  "The  Mikado's  mailed  fist 
has  fallen  heavily  upon  the  Japanese  proletariat." 

In  1918  Baron  Goto,  then  the  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  addressing  a  convention  of  governors  which  is 
regularly  called  in  Tokyo,  let  slip  a  bit  of  advice  on  the 
matter  of  their  duties  to  the  state.  He  made  reference 
to  the  increase  in  the  number  of  suppressions  of  news- 
papers and  emphasized  the  necessity  of  the  governors 
using  their  influence  to  "guide  the  press."  He  made 
some  very  open  statements  besides,  which  brought  down 
upon  him  the  wrath  of  newspaperdom.  He  was  com- 
pelled to  retract,  which  he  did  indirectly.  But  one  of 
the  Tokyo  journals — The  Yomiuri — went  to  some 
lengths  to  show  that  in  Japan  journalism  is  feared 
much  more  than  it  is  respected.  It  urged  that  Japanese 
journalists,  receiving  special  treatment,  should  also  show 
themselves  worthy  of  it.  The  general  cry  against  the 
Japanese  press  is  that  it  out-yellows  our  yellow  journals. 
But  there  is  this  to  be  said  in  its  defense:  considering 
that  scandal  and  libel  go  unpunished,  while  a  reference 
to  the  Twenty-one  Demands  on  China  meets  with 
suppression,  what  can  be  expected? 

The  amusing  part  of  all  this  suppression  is  that  while 
permanent  periodicals  and  books  must  be  passed  upon 
before  they  can  be  published,  newspapers,  when  sup- 
pressed, have  already  passed  out  to  their  subscribers. 
This  is  especially  true  of  papers  published  in  English. 
But  the  fear  on  the  part  of  the  Japanese  seems  to  be  more 
that  the  news  will  go  abroad  than  that  it  will  affect  the 
natives. 

The  foreigner  in  Japan,  however,  finds  that  his  way 
is  fairly  clear  before  him.  Though  English  is  read  by 
many  Japanese,  the  government  feels  that  the  mass 
of  its  subjects  is  sufficiently  screened  against  infection 


"DANGEROUS  THOUGHTS"       407 

with  real  western  thought  by  the  vernacular.  Language 
is  indeed  a  Chinese  Wall  between  Japan  and  its  friends 
of  the  outer  world.  Yet,  when  one  least  expects  it  one 
finds  amazing  surprises.  I  have  seen  what  seemed  to 
me  a  most  liberal  selection  of  books  on  all  subjects,  such 
as  the  Life  of  August  Bebel,  Lassalle,  etc.,  at  the  Kobe 
Higher  Commercial  School  library.  But  Mr.  A.  M. 
Pooley's  book,  Japan  at  the  Cross  Roads,  has  been  pro- 
hibited from  sale  or  distribution  in  Japan.  President 
Wilson's  speeches  were  censored  even  while  Japan  was 
professing  a  great  love  of  democracy.  And  I  have  since 
learned  that  books  unfavorable  are  bought  up  from 
American  book-stores  by  Japanese  agents.  A  gentleman 
in  New  York,  prominent  because  of  his  pro-Chinese 
leanings  tells  me  that  the  moment  his  name  appeared 
signed  to  a  letter  criticizing  Japan,  several  years  ago,  his 
Japan  Chronicle  stopped  coming  to  him.  The  govern- 
ment allows  general  criticisms  to  float  about,  but  all 
reference  to  the  Emperor  must  be  in  the  nature  of 
reverence.  The  slightest  suggestion  of  criticism  likely 
to  reflect  upon  the  divine  nature  of  the  Tenno  is  still  as 
taboo  as  though  there  still  were  czars  and  kaisers  snugly 
on  their  thrones. 

Intellectual  life  in  Japan  is  no  "dark  Russia"  to  the 
foreigner.  To  the  native,  "dark  Russia"  must  be 
unknown.  According  to  statistics  given  out  by  the 
Director  of  the  Police  Affairs  Bureau,  there  were  1,927 
suppressions  under  the  Okuma  Ministry  (1914-16); 
under  the  Terauchi  Ministry  (1916-17),  391.  What 
it  has  been  under  the  present  Minister  is  not  yet  to  hand. 
These  are  not  all  cases  of  curtailment  of  the  newspapers, 
but  include  art  and  the  movies. 

This  brief  survey  may  give  the  impression  that  liberty 
of  the  press  is  unknown  in  Japan.  Not  at  all.  One 
may  say  what  one  likes,  providing  one  doesn't  hit  upon 
something  the  government  doesn't  like.  Democracy 


4o8  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

was  so  overwhelmingly  self-assertive  during  the  war  that 
it  could  not  but  reach  the  ears  of  Japan.  But  it  was 
passed  off  as  a  foreign  importation.  It  may  be  good 
enough  for  such  countries  as  America,  but  for  Japan 
it  is  not  necessary.  Rather,  Japan  has  been  a  democ- 
racy from  Jimmu  Tenno's  time,  it  is  alleged.  A  few 
socialists  are  arrested  in  Kyoto  for  publishing  and  dis- 
tributing some  pamphlets.  The  latest  reports  are  that 
socialist  post-cards  have  suddenly  and  mysteriously  ap- 
peared, throwing  the  officials  into  general  consternation. 
Thus  it  will  be  seen  that,  suppressions  notwithstanding, 
"dangerous  thoughts"  are  filtering  into  the  country. 

Those  of  us  who  hope  for  a  better  understanding  be- 
tween Japan  and  the  great  West  (especially  America) 
know  that  it  will  come  about  only  when  uncensored 
news  and  opinion  with  regard  to  the  domestic  and 
foreign  relations  of  these  two  countries  will  be  fact  and 
not  merely  the  doctored-up  and  glossed-over  emanations 
which  are  now  creating  utter  confusion  among  us.  The 
number  of  publications  subsidized,  encouraged,  and  dis- 
tributed is  legion.  Talking  to  the  manager  of  one  of 
the  publishing  houses  in  New  York  I  was  told  that  the 
Japanese  government  bought,  as  a  subsidy,  800  copies 
of  a  book  his  firm  published.  And  since  Japan  bought 
out  Reuter's  Agency  and  established  the  Kokusai  Tsu- 
shinsha  the  government  has  had  control  over  all  news 
to  and  from  Japan. 


XXVIII 

EXPRESSION 

Drama  and  Art 

frequently  hears  the  remark  among 
foreigners  in  Japan  that  it  is  just  as  well, 
especially  for  women,  that  they  do  not 
understand  what  is  being  said  to  them  as 
they  pass  or  what  the  point  of  the  humor 
is  at  the  theater  which  has  caused  such  an  outburst  of 
laughter.  Vulgarity  is  to  be  met  with  as  unexpectedly 
in  certain  quarters  as  politeness  and  decency  are  certain 
in  others.  Especially  on  the  stage.  As  with  us,  acting 
and  loose  living  have  been  almost  synonymous  terms, 
regardless  of  what  cleanliness  and  decency  may  be  found 
in  that  profession.  In  Japan  the  position  of  the  actor 
has  been,  until  very  recently,  even  much  lower  than  with 
us.  Literally,  the  word  shibai  (theater)  means  sitting 
on  a  lawn  or  grass-plot,  and  was  used  to  signify  the  prim- 
itive theater — that  is,  actors  would  perform  from  the 
river  banks  and  be  observed  by  the  upper  classes  from 
their  pavilions  above.  Now  there  was  more  than  mere 
physical  position  in  this  arrangement.  The  actors 
during  the  Tokugawa  period  were  treated  very  poorly. 
They  came  from  the  social  element  known  as  kawara- 
mono,  the  vagrants  and  homeless  wanderers  who  lived 
under  the  bridges  upon  the  kawara  (river  banks).  Until 
the  Meiji  era,  when  all  class  distinction  was  legally 
abolished,  they  were  not  allowed  to  many  any  but 


4io  JAPAN—REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

kawaramono.  And  that  is  why  all  the  theaters  are 
generally  situated  near  the  banks  of  the  rivers.  Mina- 
miza,  the  largest  theater  in  Kyoto  to-day,  stands  right 
upon  the  east  bank  of  the  Kamogawa,  and  the  Shurak- 
wan  of  Kobe  is  on  the  spot  which  was  formerly  the 
bank  of  the  Minatogawa.  The  former  is  the  direct 
descendant  from  the  old  kawara  theater.  Some  of  the 
modern  actors  are  likewise  quite  likely  the  offspring  of 
kawara  actors,  and  even  the  famous  Danjiro  the  ninth 
was  a  kawaramono.  Vagrants  as  they  were,  it  is  easy 
to  realize  they  would  pick  up  an  understanding  of  human 
nature  and  indifference  to  established  form,  together 
with  stories  and  happenings  which  would  make  them  the 
delight  of  the  dull  stay-at-home  Japanese.  Even  to- 
day it  is  amazing  to  see  how  long  natives  will  sit  upon 
the  floor  of  a  cheap  theater  and  listen  to  the  droll  stories 
which  the  story-teller  reels  off  without  end,  with  but 
here  and  there  a  silly  attempt  at  mimicry. 

Why  the  actor  should  have  been  forced  into  the  class 
of  butchers,  leather-tanners,  removers  of  night-soil,  and 
geta  merchants  is  too  complex  a  problem  for  the  student 
of  things  Japanese.  Except,  perhaps,  that  the  women- 
degrading  Oriental  felt  that  for  a  man  to  take  to  enter- 
taining in  the  fashion  of  the  geisha  was  too  mean  and 
vulgar  to  be  tolerated.  Yet  in  the  classic  No,  which  in 
art  and  beauty  transcends  many  a  western  histrionic 
accomplishment,  no  woman  is  ever  allowed  to  take  part. 

The  popularity  of  actors  to-day  knows  no  bounds. 
The  fortunate  ones  become  the  idols  of  the  geisha  and 
others  who  vie  with  one  another  in  the  presentation  of 
stenciled  curtains  which  are  drawn  to  and  fro  across  the 
stage  to  the  edification  of  the  populace.  During  the 
influenza  epidemic  a  millionaire  died,  leaving  a  famous 
actress,  his  mistress,  in  distress.  She  "suicided  her- 
self, ' '  as  Japanese  say,  asking  that  she  be  buried  with 
her  lover.  All  Japan  was  in  consternation  as  to  whether 


THE  CLASSIC  NO  411 

her  wish  should  be  respected  or  not.  They  compro- 
mised, burying  her  at  a  distance,  but  putting  her  lover's 
picture  in  her  grave. 

I  am  now  seven  thousand  miles  away  from  Japan. 
All  about  me  is  the  clatter  of  typewriters  and  the  grinding 
of  motor-cars  and  trains.  Yet  I  need  but  shut  my  eyes 
and  forthwith  the  melancholy  sweetness  of  the  No 
murmurs  within  me.  Nothing  I  have  brought  away 
with  me  from  the  Far  East  beckons  me  to  return  more 
than  that  classic  visualization  of  emotion.  For  nothing 
in  all  Japan  is  more  of  the  very  heart  and  soul  of  that 
select  few  which  in  every  country  is  its  everlasting  glory, 
than  is  this  ancient  untrimmed  dramatic  art.  The  No 
is  not  the  art  of  the  people — yet  it  is  not  the  expression 
of  the  aristocracy.  It  is  the  outpouring  of  the  purest 
sort  of  emotion,  of  the  simplest  types  of  human  experi- 
ence, highly  individualized,  yet  set  firm  in  convention. 

Its  presentation  is  absolutely  pure.  The  stage-setting 
is  of  the  essence  of  simplicity.  No  people  in  the  wide 
world  know  better  than  the  Japanese  how  to  make  two 
walls  and  a  floor  effective,  with  the  sky  for  a  canopy. 
The  pine-tree  painted  on  the  walls  is  the  only  decoration 
other  than  the  costumes.  There  is  no  curtain,  except 
that  which  hangs  over  the  door  at  the  end  of  a  long  and 
narrow  passageway  leading  to  the  stage  from  the  left. 

As  that  curtain  is  opened  the  first  actor  appears. 
His  movements  are  constrained.  Pie  makes  short  steps, 
seldom  more  than  the  length  of  a  foot ;  he  glides,  never 
raising  his  feet  from  the  floor;  he  hesitates  as  though  he 
were  depicting  the  progress  of  time,  not  the  passing  of  an 
incident. 

In  the  meantime  the  singers,  flutists,  and  drummers 
have  been  reciting  the  prologue  to  the  No.  When  the 
actor  arrives  at  the  prescribed  place  on  the  stage  he 
begins  to  tell  who  he  is  and  what  he  is  after.  Other 
characters  appear  in  the  same  stately  way.  Their  con- 


4i2  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

versation  reveals  the  story,  the  singers  bringing  in  ex- 
traneous matter  in  the  intervals.  None  of  them  just 
speaks ;  everything  is  told  in  a  deep,  bass,  chanting  tone 
which  is  far  richer  than  the  music  of  the  West. 

As  in  the  singing  so  in  the  dancing.  The  movement 
is  slow  and  constrained.  There  is  little  dancing.  For 
instance,  when  a  character  is  on  a  long  journey  he  may 
take  five  minutes  to  cross  the  small  stage.  Sometimes 
the  actors  become  more  rapid  as  they  advance  to  the 
end  of  their  part,  but  never  take  on  the  abandon  of  the 
Greek  classic  dance. 

Whereas  with  us  art  yields  to  the  impulse  toward  dis- 
integration and  contains  itself  within  the  centrifugal 
limits  of  physical  law,  here  the  sense  of  motion,  the 
world  of  flight,  is  brought  within  the  most  unyielding  of 
limitations  without  actually  losing  any  of  the  essence  of 
swiftness.  A  comparison  can  be  made  in  the  velocity 
of  the  earth,  which  is  almost  visible  to  us,  and  the 
velocity  of  a  comet,  which  seems  stationary.  The 
first  brings  us  our  day  and  night;  the  second  has  no 
such  effect.  Our  art  has  its  cycles:  the  No  seems  to 
have  its  orbit. 

We  go  to  the  opera  and  enjoy  it  even  though  we  may 
not  understand  the  language  in  which  it  is  sung.  Not 
for  its  word-thoughts,  but  for  its  pictures  and  spirit  are 
we  audience.  So  with  the  No.  The  language  of  the 
No  is  archaic  and  little  understood  even  by  the  well- 
educated  Japanese.  Some  of  the  sounds  are  indeed 
harsh  and  meaningless,  as,  for  instance,  the  ejaculations 
of  the  drummers.  But  after  a  while  one  comes  to  want 
these  harsher  sounds  together  with  the  more  finely  beau- 
tiful as  one  wants  a  coarser  thread  beneath  the  surface 
pattern  of  a  piece  of  tapestry.  So,  too,  one  wants  the 
relaxation  of  the  farce  which  always  enters  between 
the  three  No  dramas  given  at  a  single  performance. 
The  language  of  this  Kyogen,  or  farce,  is  more  simple. 


THE  LAST  WORD  IN  COSTUME  413 

I  could  almost  understand  it  myself.  The  action  is 
more  rapid;  in  fact,  the  comedian  hops  about  the  stage. 
But  the  language  of  the  No,  being  so  ancient  and  so 
difficult,  gives  one  the  feeling  of  the  birth  of  thought  and 
the  connection  or  relation  of  music  and  pure  sound  to 
thought.  If  fully  understood  and  closely  followed, 
there  is  no  reason  why  music  should  not  be  as  definite 
as  words. 

The  No  is  rich  in  possibilities  for  interpretation.  I 
found  that  in  some  cases  knowledge  of  the  story  was  a 
drawback.  For  instance,  take  the  Jo-no-mai,  or  Plum 
Dance.  I  could  not  see  where  there  was  even  the 
slightest  relationship  between  the  acting  and  the  thing 
it  meant  to  depict.  Had  I  not  been  told,  I  should  have 
enjoyed  the  whole  because  of  its  inventiveness,  the  cos- 
tumes, and  the  motion.  But  to  see  a  masked  face  pro- 
truding from  a  costume  of  marvelous  color  harmony  and 
to  be  told  that  it  is  a  flower  dancing  taxes  my  credulity 
and  sense  of  balance  too  much. 

The  No  costume  is  by  all  means  the  last  word  in  dress. 
The  blaze  of  color,  the  crowding  in  of  fabrics  obliterating 
the  form  but  creating  form — it  is  without  peer.  The 
man  is  lost  beneath  his  art,  emerging  as  a  new  creation. 
From  his  right  arm  may  hang  a  sleeve  of  soft  orange 
tints;  from  his  left,  gold  lattice  effect  on  a  blue  back- 
ground. The  skirt,  or  trousers,  may  be  of  gold  on  pink ; 
streaming  hair  from  beneath  a  black  cap;  tremendous 
embroidered  obi  or  girdle;  snow-white  tabi  or  cloth 
shoes.  The  hands  are  always  rigid,  the  fingers  straight. 
And  when  he  swings  open  the  fan  with  his  right  hand  he 
encompasses  the  universe.  Frequently  the  actor  stands 
in  long  trousers  which  drag  out  behind  him  as  though 
he  were  on  his  knees.  Or  he  is  masked  as  a  woman. 

There  is  one  feature  of  the  No  which  is  the  essence  of 
the  Japanese  terpsichorean  art,  and  that  is  the  fan. 
We  talk  of  Japan  spoiling  such  western  art  as  she  has 


4H  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

attempted  to  imitate,  but  how  does  it  come  about  that 
the  fan,  which  plays  such  an  exquisite  part  in  their  art 
and  life,  should  have  been  so  degraded  in  the  West — 
degraded  to  a  purely  utilitarian  office,  that  of  keeping 
overdanced  ladies  cool? 

The  quivering  fan  represents  in  the  No  world  what  the 
woman's  hand  is  in  the  human  world.  Every  No  actor 
has  a  fan,  and  the  way  in  which  it  is  to  be  handled 
is  as  great  an  art  as  the  music  and  dress.  Sometimes 
it  is  supposed  to  be  a  mirror,  sometimes  a  sword.  But 
I  think  that  it  is  more  truly  the  outstretched  palm  of  the 
authority  of  art  hushing  the  seething  multitude  of  im- 
pulses which  crowd  in  upon  the  observer. 

Though  all  these  outer  manifestations  of  this  art  are 
in  themselves  sufficiently  worthy,  still,  when  the  motif, 
or  plot,  has  to  do  with  human  relationships,  knowledge 
of  the  story  is  essential.  I  have  roughly  noted  the 
characters  and  actions  of  a  few  No,  to  give  the  reader  a 
more  vivid  picture  of  its  dramatic  force. 

A  girl  enters  dressed  as  a  priest,  in  black  over-kimono 
with  gilt  breastplates.  She  prays.  A  child  comes  on, 
carrying  a  silk  garment.  Two  men  enter,  notice  the 
garment,  and  commence  to  quarrel  over  it.  One  recog- 
nizes the  child  and  takes  it  aside.  He  is  a  buyer  of 
people.  The  other  appeals  to  the  priest  for  the  release 
of  the  child.  The  offer  of  the  garment  is  meant  to  sym- 
bolize the  means  of  escape  from  the  sorrows  of  this 
world.  The  priest  pleads  for  the  child  and  throws  the 
garment  at  the  slaveholder's  feet.  The  priest  departs. 
The  men  give  way,  though  not  without  anger.  The 
patience  of  the  priest  is  beautiful.  Satisfied,  the  two 
slaveholders  step  to  the  side,  pick  up  long  bamboo  poles 
used  to  push  their  boat,  and,  without  any  other  setting, 
represent  a  departure  on  the  water  as  realistically  as  has 
ever  been  done  on  a  stage. 


SOME  NO  THEMES  415 

In  Naniwa  (Osaka)  there  lives  a  very  poor  couple. 
The  woman  goes  to  the  capital  to  earn  some  money  and 
there  becomes  the  concubine  of  the  lord.  Her  husband 
remains  very  poor,  earning  what  he  can  by  selling  ashi 
(a  kind  of  grass)  which  grows  on  the  banks  of  the  Yodo- 
gawa.  The  wife  becomes  very  rich,  and,  remembering 
her  husband,  returns  to  Naniwa  with  several  retainers  to 
try  to  find  him.  Reaching  the  city,  she  makes  inquiries 
everywhere,  but  no  one  knows  anything  of  him.  She  is 
troubled.  Just  then  a  grass-peddler  comes  along,  and 
she  recognizes  him.  In  the  end,  after  sitting  for  some 
time  and  rehearsing  their  experiences  under  the  plum- 
tree,  he  is  given  better  clothes  and  together  they  return 
to  where  the  lord's  castle  is,  and  become  husband  and 
wife  again. 

From  a  student  of  the  No  I  learned  that  it  was  often 
the  custom  in  Japan,  and  is  even  so  to-day,  for  the  wife 
in  such  circumstances  to  go  to  the  castle  and  play  with 
her  children  for  part  of  the  day,  returning  to  her  legiti- 
mate husband.  And  everybody  seems  to  remain  satis- 
fied with  the  arrangement. 

An  old  mother  enters  and  seats  herself  at  the  waki- 
bashi  (bridgeside).  She  is  dressed  in  checkered  kimono, 
very  plain.  She  says  nothing.  Presently  the  shite,  the 
hero  or  chief  character,  enters  with  black  drum-shaped 
hat,  black  kimono,  white  hakama  (pantaloons),  white 
tabi,  and  the  inevitable  fan.  The  lapel  of  his  kimono  is 
made  of  brown  cloth.  He  commences  a  sad,  dirgelike 
recitation,  during  which  he  does  not  notice  his  mother 
sitting  at  the  other  corner.  The  mother  listens  and 
speaks  up  in  most  touching  tones.  Though  the  voice  is 
that  of  a  man  (for  no  woman  is  ever  allowed  to  play  in 
the  No)  its  emotional  quality  is  full  of  feminine  lament 
and  longing,  as  beautiful  an  appeal  as  any  piece  of  music 

I  have  ever  heard.     All  the  painful  tragedy  of  such 
27 


4i6  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

meetings  is  in  their  songs,  more  forcefully  portrayed 
than  in  any  western  theater,  for,  though  mother  and 
son  approach  each  other,  they  do  not  embrace,  as 
would  we.  Is  it  not  the  tragedy  of  a  mother's  life 
(and  a  son's,  too)  when  age  has  raised  the  barrier  between 
them  which  even  an  actual  embrace  could  not  break 
down?  She  pleads,  but  her  power  to  persuade  him  has 
gone.  Her  ability  to  lead  and  guide  him  is  lost  for  ever. 
She  can  only  plead.  Her  reward  is  in  being  listened  to, 
but  he  remains  set  in  his  determination  to  avenge 
himself. 

The  chorus  comes  in  as  a  world  foundation  to  each 
man's  regret,  a  universal  admission  of  like  suffering  and 
like  incapacity  to  affect  the  ways  of  mankind.  He  is 
the  first  to  speak  after  the  chorus  finishes ;  then,  as  he  is 
about  to  leave,  he  turns  on  the  passageway  and  touches 
his  hat,  moves  in  a  pace  and  turns  again,  while  the 
mother  stands  staring  after,  half  shielding  her  eyes 
with  the  back  of  her  hand.  Slowly  she  follows  after 
him — but  he  is  gone. 

A  little  boy  with  a  sword  comes  in  first,  dressed  in 
purple  and  gold.  Then  comes  a  priest  in  black,  another 
in  gold  and  white,  a  third  in  a  profusion  of  color,  and  so  a 
fourth.  They  sing  a  Buddhist  hymn,  then  crouch;  the 
little  boy  makes  an  announcement  in  a  boyish,  high- 
pitched  voice,  and  then  they  rise  and  repeat  the  chorus. 
The  fixed,  rigid  control  seems  to  hold  in  check  a  moun- 
tain of  emotion,  while  the  splendor  and  lavishness  of 
color  are  released  of  that  same  emotion  in  ways  of 
unselfish,  selfless  beauty. 

The  warrior  enters,  dressed  in  white,  with  under- 
garments of  soft  color  and  gold.  His  sword  shows  his 
station,  while  in  his  right  hand  is  a  broom  of  rough 
twigs.  He  sweeps,  stamps  his  feet,  and,  suddenly  recog- 
nizing the  little  boy,  rushes  at  him,  but  is  warded  off  by 


REVENGE  OF  A  NARIKIN  417 

the  chief  priest.  The  men  argue,  the  priest  partially 
disrobes,  revealing  a  beautiful  plaid  undergarment. 
He  defies  and  challenges  the  intruder,  who  draws  back 
slowly  and  beats  a  hasty  retreat.  The  priest  pursues  a 
step  or  two,  speaks  of  the  samurai,  and  calls  upon  the 
soldier  there,  who  undergoes  a  change  of  costume  on  the 
open  stage.  The  priest  chants  beautifully.  The  soldier 
has  now  thrown  off  his  outer  garments,  revealing  his 
brilliant  armor ;  the  priests  also  draw  their  swords ;  there 
is  a  pitched  battle  in  which  two  flee  and  one  is  slain. 
He  is  covered  from  the  audience  with  a  cloth  and  rolls 
off  stage.  The  priest  is  triumphant. 

In  the  early  days  the  No  was  essentially  the  pastime 
of  the  nobility.  Every  lord  or  daimyo  had  a  stage  of 
his  own  and  a  subsidized  cast.  The  cost  of  costumes 
and  masks  was  simply  tremendous,  some  three  hundred 
masks  being  required  for  a  complete  No  outfit.  The 
revolution  of  1868  came  very  near  obliterating  the 
art,  but,  according  to  Ernest  Fenollosa,  it  was  preserved 
by  one  man,  Umewaka  Minoru,  who  succeeded  in  re- 
viving interest  in  it  some  three  years  after.  Since,  the 
passion  for  the  No  has  widened,  doubtless  to  its  great 
advantage.  From  time  immemorial  its  secrets  have 
been  passed  down  from  fathers  to  sons,  just  as  the  secrets 
of  any  art  or  craft  are  handed  down.  But  in  the  days 
following  the  revolution  not  only  did  the  No  pass  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  direct  descendants,  but  to-day 
narikin  of  no  blood-connection  have,  through  their  vast 
wealth,  succeeded  in  breaking  down  this  exclusiveness. 
So  in  that  way  art  is  becoming  democratized  in  Japan. 

While  Europe  was  doing  its  best  to  destroy  its  finest 
works  of  art,  a  Japanese  narikin  was  calmly  buying  up 
all  sorts  of  paintings  at  whatever  price  was  asked.  His 
judgment,  according  to  reports,  was  by  no  means  con- 
temptible. He  picked  out  the  best — and  not  merely 


418  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

from  a  monetary  standpoint.  As  he  made  his  purchase 
he  had  it  stored  in  England  against  the  day  when,  the 
war  being  over,  he  could  take  it  back  with  him  to  Japan. 
That  was  Japan  retaliating  for  the  despoliation  by  white 
connoisseurs  of  her  greatest  works  of  art  while  civil 
strife  was  creating  havoc.  Almost  all  of  Japan's  fine 
art-works  are  to  be  found  in  the  British  Museum. 
Japan  as  yet  has  no  real  National  Gallery.  Artistically, 
Japan  is  still  as  closed  to  the  world  as  ever.  What  re- 
mains to  her  of  her  treasures  are  locked  within  the 
godowns  of  millionaires,  shut  away  from  the  eyes  of  man 
and  only  on  occasion,  perhaps  once  in  a  lifetime,  are 
they  brought  forth.  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  attend 
a  small  exhibition  of  Japanese  kakemono  (hanging  scrolls) 
in  Kobe  possible  only  on  rare  occasions.  There  were 
hangings  there  which  had  not  seen  daylight  in  twenty 
years.  But  democracy  in  art  is  invading  Japan,  and  has 
taken  form  in  a  movement  for  the  erection  of  a  great 
national  treasure-house  for  permanent  exhibits. 

In  the  meantime  there  is  the  Bunten,  the  Japanese  yearly 
exhibit  of  the  latest  works.  It  opens  in  Tokyo  and  is 
then  moved  to  Kyoto,  and  affords  an  exceptional  oppor- 
tunity of  watching  the  progress  of  art.  Half  the  section 
is  devoted  to  oil-paintings,  and  the  other  half  to  Japanese 
screens  and  prints.  The  paintings  must  seem  to  the  Japan- 
ese what  the  futurist  and  cubist  paintings  were  to  the 
West.  But  I  failed  to  find  any  unusual  note  of  strength 
or  originality.  They  struck  me  as  purely  imitative. 

The  commonplace  is  seldom  used  as  subject  in  art. 
For  us  nudity  is  covered  so  securely  that  our  tendencies 
are  toward  its  portrayal.  But  nudity  in  Japan  has 
always  been  so  common  that  no  one  pays  much  attention 
to  it,  except  in  the  purely  obscene.  In  all  my  attention 
to  art  I  came  across  only  one  figure  of  a  nude  woman, 
and  that  at  the  exhibition  in  Kobe,  mentioned  above. 
It  was  a  woman  about  to  enter  the  bath.  Her  back 


THE  BUNTEN  419 

was  to  the  observer.  Japanese  women  are  so  indifferent 
to  showing  their  breasts  and  nursing  their  babies  in  public 
that  that  found  no  place  in  their  art.  In  consequence  their 
handling  of  the  nude  struck  me  as  crude  and  imitative. 

But  at  the  Bunten  the  breast  came  in  for  considerable 
display.  Furthermore,  I  noticed  that,  in  imitation  of  the 
languid  expressions  so  typical  of  the  western  woman  in 
art,  these  Japanese  painters  have  given  the  same  melan- 
choly touches  to  their  women's  faces.  They  have  for- 
gotten that  undisturbed  resignation  which  sets  off  the 
Japanese  woman's  face  from  every  other  in  the  world. 
They  have  substituted  indolent  longing  for  resignation; 
restlessness  for  calmness. 

None  has  so  far  excelled  the  Japanese  in  giving  the 
fire  of  life  to  art.  The  outstanding  painting  in  the 
whole  exhibit  was  that  of  two  Koreans.  The  two  white 
figures  were  bent  against  the  wind,  while  all  the  trees 
and  growths,  and  the  clothes  on  the  human  bodies  were 
giving  way  before  the  wind.  The  contrast  between  the 
pliancy,  the  yielding  of  nature  before  nature,  and  the 
obstinate  resistance  of  man  to  nature  was  a  new  con- 
ception forcefully  depicted. 

As  is  only  to  be  expected,  there  is  a  division  of  opinion 
on  the  value  of  these  efforts.  The  conservatives  show 
an  undercurrent  of  vindictiveness  which  is  purely  na- 
tionalistic and  not  art  criticism.  Some  of  the  critics 
in  their  comparisons  of  native  with  western  art  forgot 
their  art  altogether  in  their  endeavors  to  exalt  their 
own  and  deride  the  foreign  products.  ''Should  any 
foreign  artist  have  painted  it,"  said  one,  "it  would  be 
very  unpleasant  to  see."  One  merely  sets  a  statement 
like  this  off  by  itself,  squints  at  it,  and  says  nothing. 
Art  knows  no  such  limitations.  It  is  well  for  nations  to 
glory  in  their  artistic  results.  It  is  well  that  they  should 
"raise  temples  to  art."  But  they  must  be  careful  lest 
their  galleries  turn  to  tombs  instead  of  temples. 


42o  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

They  have  opera  in  Japan,  also,  and  an  imperial 
orchestra.  Western  music  is  making  slow  progress. 
Because  he  disapproved  of  the  character  of  one  of  his 
musicians,  a  Japanese  narikin  withdrew  his  support  to 
the  orchestra  and  it  had  to  disband.  The  phonograph, 
however,  is  making  its  way  into  the  inner  regions 
of  the  Empire,  and  one  foreigner  informs  me  that 
he  sells  classic  records  as  far  from  the  ports  as  Na- 
goya. 

One  is  not  at  all  satisfied  with  western  art  in  Japan, 
any  more  than  one  familiar  with  original  European  forms 
can  enjoy  many  of  their  American  manifestations.  So 
one  turns  away  from  the  ugly  modern  buildings  and  the 
screeching  western  music  and  languid,  westernized 
Japanese  maidens  and  plays  with  what  fancies  the  past 
in  Japan  affords. 

I  was  sitting  in  the  lobby  of  the  Imperial  Hotel,  alone. 
In  the  corner,  his  shoulder  leaning  against  the  wall,  stood 
a  weird  little  creature.  Full  of  disdainful  cynicism,  his 
eyes  looking  with  bewilderment,  yet  as  though  peeping 
from  behind  a  shelter,  he  caught  me  by  surprise.  When 
first  I  met  this  little  person  I  thought  he  was  alive  and 
laughed  in  fellowship  with  him.  I  felt  as  though  out  of 
all  the  people  present  at  the  hotel  he  was  the  only  one 
with  whom  I  wanted  to  be  pals.  But  he  didn't  seem  to 
know  how  to  take  my  boldness,  and  in  went  his  shoulder 
an  imaginary  inch  farther  into  the  corner.  I  noticed 
that  he  held  a  black  ball  in  his  red-lacquered  hands,  and 
it  seemed  to  me  it  must  be  the  very  world  I  live  on.  And 
his  cynicism  and  doubt  became  clear  to  me.  Why 
should  he  bear  the  burden  of  my  world?  I  thought. 
This  sympathy  in  thought  brought  him  a  couple  of 
imaginary  inches  out  of  his  corner.  I  felt  I  could  report 
progress.  But  here  I  had  to  go  slowly,  for  he  was  rather 
sensitive  to  forced  sympathy.  I  was  afraid  of  losing 
him,  but,  having  gone  so  far,  I  couldn't  help  going  on 


IMPORTED  LITTLE  DEVILS  421 

with  it.  This  time  I  got  up  from  my  easy-chair  and  met 
him  part  way.  From  close  by  I  could  see  he  had  trouble 
enough  to  bear — what  with  only  three  clawlike  fingers 
to  each  hand  in  which  to  hold  a  world.  A  little  fire- 
demon  was  dancing  about  with  his  four  legs  in  the  locks 
of  flame-hair  on  his  head.  With  full  hands,  this  was 
worse  than  insult.  This  thought  won  from  him  the 
following  unspoken  remark:  "Yes,  I  call  that  treachery. 
Don't  you?  All  I  have  to  protect  myself  with  against 
the  flame  coming  lower  is  a  heavy  breastplate  of  fraudu- 
lent iron  and  a  sulu,  or  skirt  of  leaves.  Fine  comfort 
that  for  an  overburdened  fire-god,  isn't  it?  My  knees 
have  become  knotted  from  knocking  and  my  legs  stiff 
and  bony,  and  all  the  satisfaction  I  can  get  is  digging  my 
three  claws  into  the  flame-source  upon  which  I  stand. 
Nice  thing  for  a  creator  to  do.  I'd  get  another  job  if  I 
weren't  too  old  now.  At  my  age  one  mustn't  complain." 

By  this  time  I  caught  sight  of  the  other  fellow,  like- 
wise hiding  in  the  corner  on  the  other  side  of  the  fire- 
place. He  stood  fairly  shrieking  with  soundless  laughter 
because  he  had  locked  a  dragon's  head  against  his  hip 
and  held  the  tail  streaming  over  the  left  shoulder  in  his 
left  hand.  Really  a  funny  situation  for  a  dragon  to  be 
in.  I  laughed,  too,  but  it  seemed  funny  that  at  the  same 
time  a  similar  little  creature  of  a  dragon  was  making 
fun  of  an  ambidextrous  freak  from  the  top  of  his  head. 
Somebody  had  eaten  his  brown  eye  out,  poor  fellow. 
His  scaly  belly  and  arms  were  his  only  protection,  unless 
one  were  to  regard  the  leaves  on  his  thighs  as  such. 
What  a  funny  devil ! 

"I'd  go  back  home,"  said  the  other  devil,  "if  I  weren't 
too  old  now."  I  looked  at  him  again,  wondering  where 
home  was.  It  then  occurred  to  me  that  he  was  indeed 
an  importation,  as  is  well-nigh  all  the  art  in  Japan,  and 
I  laughed  to  myself.  A  foreigner!  An  importation! 


XXIX 

CONCERNING   JAPANESE    PERSONALITY 

[ERETOFORE  I  have  been  treating  things 
and  places  and  individuals.  In  this  chapter 
I  shall  attempt  the  more  difficult  and  per- 
haps hopeless  task  of  generalization.  At 
most  a  traveler  meets  a  thousand  individ- 
uals in  a  country.  Even  if  he  has  watched  closely  the 
trend  of  events,  how  does  he  know  the  motives  which 
precipitated  them?  Which  one  of  us,  seeing  smoke, 
would  be  safe  in  saying  why  the  fire  was  started? 

Japan  is  in  a  state  of  transition,  and  all  our  observa- 
tions of  yesterday  are  somewhat  belated  "I  told  you 
so's."  Most  of  my  impressions  were  written  during  the 
early  period  of  my  residence.  The  first  of  this  book 
gives  account  of  what  I  saw  during  the  first  six  months. 
The  rest  is  the  Japan  I  saw  after  the  morning  glow  had 
merged  with  the  full  sunlight.  However,  I  cannot  re- 
member a  time  when  I  did  not  see  both  the  good  and  the 
bad  in  this  complex  little  world. 

The  thing  the  observer  resents  is  not  that  he  finds 
both  good  and  bad,  but  the  bold  assumption  of  per- 
fection, a  shrinking  from  acknowledgment  of  this  mixt- 
ure. One  becomes  impatient  with  the  laggard  waiters, 
the  cramped  disharmonies  of  modern  Japanese  life,  the 
affectation  and  striving,  the  bartering  of  fallacies  for 
fame.  Everywhere  the  resultant  discord  between  the 
old  and  the  new  Japan  is  evident.  Everywhere  the  in- 
congruous mixtures  of  modern  manufacture  with  primi- 


REVERSION  TO  TYPE  423 

tive  handiwork  are  wracking  the  bones  and  the  spirit  of 
Japan.  Whether  these  tendencies  will  finally  vanquish 
old  Japan  it  is  too  early  to  predict.  Whether  the  result 
will  be  mutation  to  an  entirely  different  species  japon- 
icus  it  is  wise  to  contemplate,  but  wiser  to  keep  from 
professing. 

The  strangest  thing  withal  is  to  what  a  slight  extent 
westernization  has  really  affected  Japan.  Almost  all  the 
friends  the  foreigner  makes  are  people  who  have  spent 
from  ten  to  fifteen  years  in  the  Occident — the  early 
years  of  their  lives.  The  wife  of  one  was  born  in  America 
and  did  not  see  Japan  till  she  was  nearly  twenty.  She 
is  American  in  a  repressed  sort  of  way.  Her  voice  is 
American,  and  some  of  her  facial  expressions  are. 
Yet  since  her  coming  to  the  home  of  her  ancestors  she 
has  been  Japanese  entirely.  How  resigned  a  reversion 
to  type!  Had  her  birth  and  rearing  in  America  eradi- 
cated her  inheritance,  no  Japanese  custom  would  be 
able  to  bind  her.  A  Chinese  woman  with  such  acquired 
characteristics  would  in  the  same  position  influence  at 
least  a  limited  circle  within  her  new  sphere,  as  did 
Princess  Der  Ling  after  her  coming  to  China  from  the 
first  nineteen  years  of  her  life  in  Europe.  She  was  a 
dynamic  force  in  the  very  midst  of  one  of  the  most 
crystallized  forms  of  Orientalism.  She  even  effected 
changes  in  the  habits  of  the  Empress  Dowager. 

But  not  so  the  Japanese  woman.  Nor  the  man,  either, 
for  that  matter.  Though  the  germ  of  westernism  takes 
hold  somewhat,  still  he  is  through  and  through  Japanese. 
It  is  impossible  completely  to  Occidentalize  him.  True 
that  the  white  man  is  as  unyielding  when  it  comes  to 
being  Orientalized  and  that  in  consequence  little  blame 
need  attach  itself  to  the  Japanese.  But  it  is  consider- 
ably more  reactive  in  the  case  of  the  Japanese.  He 
takes  on  the  protective  coloring  of  his  environment  easily 
enough.  He  manifests  certain  traits  peculiar  to  his  new 


424  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

environment,  but  they  disappear  almost  immediately 
after  his  return.  I  have  met  a  number  of  Japanese  who 
told  me  that  they  intend  to  carry  on  their  business  in 
American  ways  or  quit  Japan  again.  But  soon  enough 
that  is  forgotten.  And  in  this  chapter  I  shall  point  to 
some  of  the  reasons  why  this  is  so. 

Sociability  is  one  of  the  most  living  characteristics  of 
the  Japanese.  When  they  meet  you  they  don't  know 
what  to  do  to  show  you  how  pleased  they  are.  Their 
mixing  proclivities  are  marvelously  pronounced.  In 
my  residence  of  two  years  in  Australia  and  New  Zealand 
I  did  not  receive  a  hundredth  part  of  the  kindliness 
• — though  it  was  profuse  enough — accorded  me  during 
the  first  four  months  of  my  stay  in  Japan.  The  Japanese 
interest  in  my  comfort  and  happiness  was  remarkable. 
Some  observers  have  attributed  this  to  a  well-devised 
scheme  of  showing  the  West  their  best  side  for  purposes 
of  "advertisement."  And  to  a  certain  extent  this  is 
beyond  doubt.  But  it  is  deeper  than  that.  It  is  the 
latent  ceremonial  natures  of  these  people,  their  love  of 
crowds,  and  dread  of  loneliness,  or  what  under  another 
head  I  have  called  their  communal  make-up,  or  clannish- 
ness.  You  have  asked  one  to  go  somewhere  with  you, 
and  presently  you  are  in  a  crowd,  you  have  a  retinue. 
This  spirit  is  obvious  to  the  most  casual  observer.  They 
ask  you  to  dinner  and  soon  you  have  a  dinner-party 
with  geisha  and  comrades  galore.  Their  houses  are 
built  with  thin  paper  partitions  because  they  enjoy 
this  mingling  even  when  they  seek  privacy.  It  extends 
itself  even  to  their  prisons,  where  what  we  call  solitary 
confinement  is  virtually  unknown. 

This  sociability  has  its  expression  in  the  courtesy  for 
which  Japanese  have  been  so  far-famed.  Self-assertion, 
which  often  compels  a  man  to  be  discourteous,  is  as 
foreign  to  the  Japanese  as  their  kind  of  courtesy  is  to  us. 
One  soon  learns  to  discount  Japanese  politeness,  simply 


COURTESY  425 

because  it  is  manifest  even  where  one  would  really  appre- 
ciate discourtesy  and  honor  it.  One  does  not  like  to 
associate  with  a  menial.  Yet  their  perpetual  smiling 
and  fawning,  though  not  meant  as  such,  but  simply  as 
an  expression  of  their  conceptions  of  form,  leaves  one 
with  the  sense  of  having  dealt  with  inferiors.  On  this 
account  is  there  so  much  bullying  from  the  foreigners 
which  I  shall  refer  to  later  in  this  chapter. 

Japanese  courtesy  is  an  outgrowth  of  Japanese  feu- 
dalism. It  has  left  its  impress  on  the  Japanese  character 
to  such  an  extent  that  there  is  much  less  differentiation 
of  the  sexes  than  is  found  in  the  West.  Though  in  detail 
there  is  a  great  contrast  between  the  clothes  of  the  man 
.and  the  woman  in  Japan,  still  in  essence  they  are  the 
same — the  skirt  and  the  kimono.  But  where  there  is 
even  less  distinction  is  in  their  social  status.  Wherever 
rigid  social  cleavage  is  found  between  the  sexes  it  seems 
that  one  sex  is  more  apt  to  take  on  the  characteristics  of 
the  other.  In  America,  for  example,  where  men  and 
women  are  free  in  their  social  relations,  for  a  man  to 
show  any  signs  of  effeminacy  would  earn  for  him  the 
term  of  mollycoddle.  But  in  Japan,  where  the  life  of  the 
woman  is  so  distinct  from  that  of  the  man,  it  strikes  me 
that  the  man  assumes  feminine  traits  with  much  less 
fear  of  social  consequences. 

Just  as  the  court  fool  was  free  to  be  as  radical  as  he 
pleased  in  Europe  so  the  geisha  in  Japan.  They  were 
the  mainstay  of  a  political  system  which  for  hundreds 
of  years  never  tolerated  the  development  of  the  in- 
dividual. During  the  Tokugawa  era  intrigue  and 
treachery  had  been  developed  to  such  a  fine  art  that  no 
man's  thoughts  were  his  own.  And  men  turned  to  one 
of  the  safest  outlets  for  their  spirits — the  public  woman. 
Even  the  leader  of  the  heroic  Forty-seven  Ronin  is 
alleged  to  have  used  her  as  a  blind  to  his  intentions. 
And  even  earlier,  when  Hideyoshi,  the  great  general, 


426  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

wanted  to  show  the  besieged  and  stubborn  Baron 
Ujimasu  that  he  could  wait  for  a  surrender,  he  ordered 
entertainments  with  geisha  to  take  place  within  his  camp, 
to  the  delight  of  most,  and  the  disgust  of  some,  of  his 
warriors.  The  decline  and  fall  of  empire  is  often  at- 
tributed to  dissoluteness  and  immorality;  but  as  much, 
if  not  more,  is  it  due  to  the  suppression  of  thought,  the 
fear  of  rulers  of  the  ideas  of  their  subjects. 

The  political  suppression  of  the  man  created  the  geisha ; 
and  the  geisha  brought  about  the  suppression  of  the 
woman.  The  Japanese  mother  is  a  lovable  creature 
indeed,  meek  and  unthinking,  patient  and  self-sacrificing. 
But  humble,  insignificant,  helpless  as  the  Japanese 
woman  may  be,  degraded  she  decidedly  is  not.  Within 
her  own  sphere  she  is  supreme.  The  widowed  mother 
obeys  her  eldest  son  even  if  he  is  only  a  child;  but  the 
old  man  worships  his  mother  long  after  she  is  dead.  Yet 
to  this  very  day  she  is  not  allowed  to  attend  any  political 
rneeting. 

\  The  thing  moves  round  in  a  vicious  circle,  and  ever 
and  ever  the  circle  narrows,  the  scope  becomes  limited. 
Japanese  life  is  indeed  a  pyramid,  a  cone,  but  imperi- 
alism moves  round  on  the  outside  while  the  masses  are 
on  the  inside.  Every  time  humanity  attempts  to  rise 
it  finds  its  space  limited  and  narrowing,  and  free  as  men 
may  be  within  that  compass,  they  gradually  sink  into 
submissiveness.  With  sociability  an  expression  of  the 
clan-spirit  of  the  Empire,  and  courtesy  and  politeness 
circumscribed  by  fear  and  form,  submissiveness  finally 
breaks  out  in  various  forms  of  fanaticism  and  hysteria. 
I  have  often  felt  that  were  a  Japanese  ordered  to  kiss  his 
wife  five  times  a  day,  it  would  be  done  with  the  regu- 
larity of  an  electric  clock.  I  have  often  been  amazed 
at  the  childishness  of  the  Japanese  in  their  various  forms 
of  amusement.  They  make  children  of  themselves  in 
their  games  with  the  geisha,  clapping  hands  and  shouting 


SUBMISSIVENESS  427 

in  ways  western  men  would  regard  as  ultra-feminine. 
Go  to  the  amusement  districts  of  the  large  cities  and 
you  will  see  at  all  times  crowds  of  young  men  from  eigh- 
teen to  twenty-five,  bent  over  small  concrete  pools  of 
water  about  six  feet  by  four  by  six  inches  deep  in  which 
tiny  little  fish  swim  about.  Over  these  the  men  will 
stand  for  hours  with  eighteen-inch  rods  and  four-foot 
lines,  fishing.  Nor  is  this  childishness  limited  to  the 
poor.  Japanese  poetry,  beautiful  and  expressive  as  it 
is,  lacks  vitality,  lacks  force,  and  seems  to  me  to  be  again 
the  manifestation  of  this  imperial  suppression  under 
which  Japan  has  lived  for  centuries. 

Just  as  this  affects  the  status  of  the  Japanese  woman 
so  it  does  other  things  in  Japan.  One  is  inclined  to 
think  of  the  Japanese  as  by  nature  cruel,  because  of  his 
neglectfulness.  He  is  not  by  nature  cruel;  he  is  obe- 
dient. Obedience  often  results  in  cruelty  and  comes 
from  weakness  rather  than  strength.  Were  the  Japanese 
atheists,  and  not  merely  without  religion,  they  might  be 
a  most  gentle  and  most  kind  race.  Their  hardness  comes 
from  lack  of  positive  conviction. 

I  remember  passing  down  a  side-street  one  day  where  I 
saw  a  crowd  pressing  round  a  restaurant.  Within  was 
a  husky  fellow,  raving  furiously  and  staggering  about. 
He  was  either  drunk  or  insane.  The  people  about  him 
in  the  room  did  not  once  reply  to  his  ranting,  but  looked 
silently  at  him  in  a  kindly  spirit.  They  were  waiting 
for  authority  (a  policeman)  to  intervene.  It  was 
remarkable.  Half  a  dozen  men  continued  at  their 
business  as  though  no  quarrelsome  drunkard  were 
pouring  volleys  of  threats  upon  them.  Then  the  officer 
with  his  sword  arrived.  His  presence  was  like  oil  on 
troubled  waters.  The  insane  man  adjusted  his  tongue 
and  his  manners  to  the  new  situation  with  miraculous 
alacrity.  The  doors  and  wooden  shutters  were  closed, 
the  electric  lamps  from  in  front  removed,  and  a  mysteri- 


428  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

ous,  awe-inspiring  seal  was  set  upon  the  place.  I  could 
not  learn  from  any  one  the  cause,  but  it  seemed  as 
though  death  had  suddenly  paralyzed  the  erstwhile 
living  establishment. 

Hysteria  among  Japanese  (especially  women)  is  one 
of  the  most  serious  complaints  in  the  Orient.  Japanese 
are  not  always  quiet  and  calm  in  the  presence  of  strain 
and  difficulty,  for  they  are  not  all  strong  and  free.  Con- 
trasts and  conflicts  are  always  to  be  met.  The  danger  is 
generally  when  they  let  themselves  go.  They  have  con- 
trolled themselves,  or  have  been  controlled,  so  long  that 
when  released  rage  is  often  blinding. 

It  is  natural  to  grieve.  That  civilization  in  its  nu- 
merous forms  has  sought  to  veil  the  torments  of  the 
heart  is  often  due  to  fear  of  further  torture.  It  is  never 
written  that  one  mustn't  show  his  grief — except,  I  think, 
where  social  conditions  are  unstable.  The  vigorous 
Maori  in  New  Zealand  tattooed  his  face  so  that  his 
enemy  would  not  know  his  fear.  In  rigorous  Japan, 
where  a  samurai's  face  was  as  often  as  much  as  his  life 
was  worth,  it  is  little  wonder  that  he  developed  a  "false- 
face."  This  selfsame  Japanese,  upon  whom  we  some- 
times look  as  one  not  to  be  trusted  because  he  does  not 
show  in  his  face  what  he  harbors  in  his  heart,  is  he  who 
through  ages  of  the  severest  subservience  to  daimyo 
or  samurai  learned  how  not  to  jeopardize  his  desired  end 
by  too  frank  a  confession  of  his  mood  or  impulse.  Sub- 
ordination to  the  whims  of  his  superiors  engendered 
circuitous  ways  and  traits.  Knowing  treachery — be- 
cause himself  a  past-master  in  it — to  be  at  his  elbow  day 
and  night,  Hideyoshi  several  times  disarmed  it  by  hand- 
ing his  sword  to  leyasu  at  the  very  moment  he  expected 
him  to  strike.  Jack  London  in  his  Iron  Heel  shows 
that  one  can  completely  change  one's  physiognomy  at 
will.  In  this  light  the  Japanese  spirit,  which  is  their 
pride  and  the  world's  mystery,  is  easily  explained.  As 


HYSTERIA  AND  BRAVERY  429 

mysterious  and  inaccessible  as  is  the  Japanese  mind,  a 
little  study  will  help  one  to  detect  the  heart's  impulse 
as  readily  as  in  any  man. 

In  all  the  "scare"  talk  about  Japan's  militarism — 
essentially  true  from  the  bureaucratic  angle — one  must 
not  lose  sight  of  the  basic  character  of  the  people. 
Japanese  chauvinists  try  to  impress  the  world  with  the 
word  samurai  as  symbolic  of  something  latent  in  the  Nip- 
ponese breast.  But  it  has  now  come  to  the  point  where 
Japan  can  no  longer  withhold  the  truth  that  distaste  of 
the  army  is  as  prevalent  in  Japan  as  elsewhere.  The 
number  of  young  men  who  have  themselves  "doctored," 
starved,  and  bled  to  be  found  ineligible  for  service  is 
increasing  everywhere.  That  is  because  bushido,  or 
the  way  of  the  soldier,  is  not  as  component  a  part  of 
Japanese  nature  as  they  would  have  us  believe.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  soldiering  was  a  class  pro- 
fession and  that  it  is  only  a  matter  of  sixty  years  since  the 
mass  of  men  have  had  anything  to  do  with  war.  Hide- 
yoshi  prepared  to  send  about  200,000  men  in  all  to 
Korea.  In  the  struggle  between  his  son  and  leyasu,  in 
which  the  greatest  number  of  men  ever  massed  in  Japan 
at  any  one  battle-field  came  in  conflict,  there  were  only 
about  150,000  all  told.  Military  figures  are  hard  to 
handle,  for  gross  exaggerations  were  always  reported  by 
both  sides.  Of  course  the  number  of  samurai  in  the 
country  was  much  more  than  those  concentrated  at  any 
one  place.  Yet  military  life  in  Japan  was  too  severe 
for  additions  of  wounded  and  disabled  who  returned  to 
civil  life  to  count  for  much.  A  man  went  into  battle  to 
die,  and  prisoners  were  scorned,  though  often  taken. 
So  that  even  if  the  number  above  were  doubled  it  would 
only  mean  that  half  a  million  or  more  of  men  were  samurai 
out  of  a  population  of  some  forty  millions.  Released  from 
the  hold  the  military  clan  still  has  upon  the  country, 
Japan  would  become  as  peace-loving  as  it  ever  was. 


430  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

One  of  the  reasons  Japanese  journalists  and  politicians 
boastingly  and  sincerely  put  forward  against  the  sending 
of  troops  to  the  European  battle-fields  was  that  Japanese 
soldiers  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  turn  back,  and  that 
to  send  them  to  Europe  where  British  and  French  sol- 
diers were  advancing  and  retreating  was  not  right.  A 
Japanese  soldier  would  not  retreat.  Yet  there  is  any 
amount  of  historical  evidence  to  the  contrary,  such  as 
the  case  of  Ishida  Mitsunari,  Governor  of  Lower  Kyoto, 
Minister  of  Criminal  Law  and  Administration,  and  at 
one  time  the  right-hand  man  of  Hideyoshi.  Ishida 
exulted  in  being  ready  to  become  a  prisoner,  though 
planning  always  to  escape. 

What  that  boast  really  signined  was  not  exactly  what 
the  Japanese  intended.  It  shows  an  absence  of  in- 
dividuality, a  blind  execution  of  order,  a  fanaticism  which 
is  happily  dying  out  in  the  world.  It  is  only  half  a  cen- 
tury since  that  selfsame  zeal  spent  itself  in  defense  of  a 
local  daimyo  against  a  contending  daimyo  in  another 
section  of  the  country.  The  national  idealism,  of  which 
so  much  is  heard,  is  after  all  only  a  recent  affair,  yet  to- 
day the  Japanese  is  lost  in  the  pursuit  of  nationalism  as 
blindly  as  he  was  in  feudalism.  The  pitiable  part  of  it 
is  that  that  same  enthusiasm  can  be  used  by  whosoever 
is  in  power  for  good  or  evil,  for  there  has  as  yet  sprung  up 
little  counterbalancing  force  for  individualism. 

The  spirit  now  prevailing  among  the  more  idealistic 
is  for  mutual  understanding  between  peoples.  There 
are  humanitarians  in  Japan,  lovers  of  peace,  unselfish 
and  generous,  healthful  and  courageous.  But  their 
efforts  are  largely  nullified  by  chauvinists,  who  rely 
upon  the  vanity  of  the  people  for  gaining  their  ends. 
Only  vain  people  would  have  permitted  themselves  to 
accept  with  pride  such  sugar-coated  nonsense  as  has 
been  written  about  Japan.  And  they  gloried  in  it.  It 
is  amazing  that  instead  of  resenting  diminutives  and 


EXCLUSIVENESS  431 

adjectives  such  as  were  used  in  connection  with  Japan 
they  should  have  taken  them  with  relish.  And  now  one 
cannot  call  their  attention  to  a  single  inconvenience 
which  they  will  not  immediately  defend  with,  "It  is 
Japanese  way,"  and  think  that  that  puts  the  stamp  of 
perfection  upon  it.  When  morality  is  discussed  they 
retort,  "We  don't  need  to  be  taught  morality;  we  are 
naturally  moral."  There  is  a  grain  of  truth  in  this. 
One  Japanese  writer  on  The  Nightside  of  Japan  says  that 
foreigners  bathe  because  they  are  dirty;  Japanese,  out 
of  habit. 

This  nationalism  has  become  a  mania  with  the  Jap- 
anese. In  fact,  they  are  no  more  patriotic  than  any 
other  people  on  earth;  in  attitude,  they  affect  venera- 
tion beyond  anything  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the  world. 
The  Japanese  are  still  a  very  superstitious  people  at 
bottom,  and  that  is  why  mikadoism  can  maintain  so  firm 
a  hold  upon  them.  The  influenza  is  attributed  to  a 
double  suicide,  the  girl  seeking  her  lover  taken  from 
her  two  centuries  ago  bringing  this  disease  to  every  door 
at  which  she  makes  her  inquiry.  Hence  it  is  called 
after  her,  Osome-kaze,  and  during  the  early  days  of  the 
epidemic  people  pasted  slips  of  paper  on  their  doors 
with  the  words,  "Hisamatsu  rusu"  (Hisamatsu — -your 
lover — is  absent).  Ghosts  are  still  seen  and  heard,  and 
the  announcement  of  their  having  made  a  visit  will 
ruin  a  bath-house  financially.  People  still  inoculate 
themselves  against  malaria,  cholera,  and  other  diseases 
by  eating  doyomochi  or  "twentieth  day  of  the  month  of 
each  season  rice  dough."  One  of  the  difficulties  the 
authorities  meet  in  the  suppression  of  plague  is  the 
apathy  and  fear  of  the  people.  In  this  officialism,  in  a 
manner  deservedly,  meets  its  Waterloo,  for  were  it  less 
rigorous  and  more  understanding  of  modern  practice  it 
would  clean  up  the  streets  first  and  lay  sewers  and 

handle  what  cases  come  to  it  with  more  humanity.     As 
28 


432  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

it  is,  having  once  tasted  of  "paternal  care,"  the  people 
avoid  it  with  fear.  Thus,  in  the  end,  will  the  people 
come  to  look  upon  bureaucracy. 

Bureaucracy  begets  exclusiveness.  Though  by  nature 
the  Japanese  are  cordial  and  friendly,  taught  to  regard 
themselves  as  superior  to  all  people  on  earth,  they  have 
become  exclusionists.  They  take  you  in,  but  you  never 
become  a  member  of  the  family.  I  have  tried  earnestly 
to  obtain  a  grip.  They  are  nice,  polite,  and  kind — but 
they  never  let  themselves  go. 

They  place  obstacles  in  the  way  of  intermarriage 
which  are,  'tis  true,  merely  stumbling-blocks,  but  which 
make  for  confusion.  As  a  consequence,  the  unions 
which  result  are  seldom  really  desirable.  I  am  speaking 
generally,  but  can  be  more  specific.  It  is  next  to  im- 
possible for  foreigners  to  meet  the  better  type  of  Jap- 
anese women.  The  result  is  that  what  unions  do  take 
place  are  more  often  casual  and  undesirable.  In  a  sense 
the  Japanese  are  justified,  for  the  attitude  of  most 
foreigners  who  live  in  the  ports  is  anything  but  pro- 
ductive of  good  will;  and  the  comparison  between 
many  foreign  women  and  the  modest  Japanese  type 
results  in  a  decision  favorable  to  the  latter.  After 
having  mixed  almost  exclusively  with  Japanese  for  four 
or  five  months  I  went  one  evening  to  a  concert.  The 
faults  the  Japanese  see  in  us  stood  out  glaringly  to  me, 
who  had  become  more  or  less  adjusted  to  the  restraint 
and  modesty  of  the  little  Japanese  woman.  There  were 
four  of  them  present,  a  rich  contrast  to  the  boldness  and 
forwardness  in  dress,  speech,  and  manner  of  the  foreign 
women.  In  contrast  to  low  necks  and  bare  arms  and 
skirts  almost  up  to  the  knees  were  these  four  little 
Japanese  girls,  well-shaped  heads  and  fine  faces,  dark 
skins  with  massive  black  hair,  clothed  in  soft -colored 
kimonos,  which  utterly  and  completely  obliterated  their 
sex.  But  the  consensus  of  opinion  among  foreigners  in 


TIMIDITY  433 

Japan,  who  have  dealings  with  other  than  scholars  and 
diplomats,  is  that  the  Japanese  woman  is  a  species  apart 
from  the  men. 

Unconsciously  the  Japanese  are  happy  with  the 
presence  of  the  foreigner.  They  delight  in  him,  and 
often  make  the  way  of  the  exile  pleasant  indeed.  But 
in  this  it  seems  that  they  recognize  in  him  a  force  for 
their  own  release.  For  five  hundred  years  under  the 
heel  of  usurping  daimyo,  out  of  touch  with  the  person 
of  the  Emperor,  who  certainly  was  a  symbol  dear  to 
them  in  former  times,  they  seem  to  see  in  the  foreigner 
a  medium  of  escape.  Mind  you,  it  would  be  a  shock  to 
their  pride  if  they  were  told  so,  and  they  would  resent  it 
deeply.  They  do  not  even  allow  themselves  to  think  it, 
to  admit  it  into  consciousness.  But  it  is  there. 

Take,  for  instance,  this  incident.  A  neighbor  of 
mine  agreed  with  me  that  the  calling  for  rickshaws  at 
two  and  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  was  an  imposi- 
tion. But  his  tendency  was  to  let  it  go  as  others  had 
done  for  years.  At  last  he  consented  to  come  with  me 
to  make  a  complaint  to  the  police.  We  met  at  the 
police  station.  Just  outside  the  door  he  asked  me  for 
my  card.  I  thought  he  would  support  it  with  his  own. 
Not  much.  He  presented  mine  only  and  spoke  as 
though  I  alone  were  making  the  complaint — himself 
acting  only  as  interpreter.  He  was  obviously  timid  in 
the  presence  of  the  police,  nor  did  he  care  to  have  the 
accused  know  he  had  voiced  a  complaint.  He  thus 
threw  the  whole  responsibility  upon  my  shoulders.  I 
let  him  go  on  just  to  see  how  far  he  would  carry  it,  and 
he  left  himself  out  of  it  completely.  He  felt  that  I,  a 
foreigner,  would  have  more  weight  in  complaining  than 
would  he. 

I  complained  to  my  landlord  that  the  open  gutter  in 
front  of  my  house  was  clogged  and  the  sewage  from 
three  or  four  neighbors  gathered  there.  But  he  told  me 


434  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

to  complain  to  the  city  authorities.  It  was  only  after 
I  laughed  at  that,  saying  that  I  as  a  foreigner  should 
not  be  asked  to  complain  for  him,  the  native  landlord, 
that  he  said  he  would  do  so.  But  he  never  did. 

The  foreigner  is  more  dynamic,  more  bold,  less  timid 
in  the  presence  of  authority.  This  frequently  results  in 
discord.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  foreigner 
is  not  infrequently  to  blame.  Take,  for  instance,  one  of 
the  popular  handbooks  to  colloquial  Japanese.  To  read 
the  brazen,  bullying  remarks  this  compiler  places  at  the 
command  of  the  tourist  is  a  sad  reflection  on  the  nature 
and  practice  of  westerners.  Considering  that  we  regard 
ourselves  as  superiors  it  is  a  sad  commentary  on  our 
gentility  that  any  one  should  think  we  would  use  the 
suggested  remarks  this  little  volume  contains.  The 
editor  frankly  heads  them  as  "Some  disagreeable  asser- 
tions." Here  are  a  few:  "He  is  a  terrible  liar."  "You 
idiot. ' '  ' '  You're  a  liar. ' '  Here  are  two  not  in  the  above 
category:  "Really,  the  fleas  in  this  house  are  remark- 
able." "This  butter  smells  horribly."  And  so  on. 
I  must  say  that  there  is  ample  occasion  for  such  remarks, 
and  confess  that  I  have  been  more  than  once  driven  to 
using  some,  but  in  the  ears  of  the  erstwhile  humble 
Japanese  these  must  have  sounded  harsh  beyond  words, 
though  I  dare  say  he  got  as  much  and  worse  from  his 
own  superiors. 

I  generally  had  my  ups  and  downs.  One  certainly 
grows  to  love  these  people  with  a  melancholy  love. 
Their  courtesy  does  not  permit  you  to  treat  them  as 
equals,  and  their  coarseness  frequently  repels  you. 
Their  humility  is  pathetic.  It  roots  and  draws  its  sap 
too  much  in  old  Japan — a  time  which  was  surely  not  a 
happy  one  for  them.  And  since  they  have  extended 
to  foreigners,  whom  they  did  not  understand  and  who 
in  many  cases  played  the  parts  of  princes  though  paupers 
in  spirit,  the  same  respect,  what  can  we  expect,  and 


FOREIGN  INFLUENCE  435 

what  demand?  That  is  where  the  problem  of  our 
future  relationship  hinges. 

What  has  been  the  effect  of  fifty  years  of  contact? 
Are  we  any  nearer  to  mutual  understanding?  I  regret 
to  say  that  my  observations  do  not  lead  me  to  that 
conclusion.  The  flood  of  "inspired"  literature,  subsi- 
dized press,  expurgated  news  service  which,  owned  or 
controlled  by  the  Japanese  government,  has  sought  to 
stem  the  tide  of  democracy  threatening  to  undermine 
its  bureaucratic  power — there  and  there  alone  must  the 
blame  for  misunderstanding  be  laid.  While  missions  were 
touring  the  United  States  telling  Americans  how  much 
Japan  hungers  for  democracy  an  anti-American  cam- 
paign was  afoot  in  Japan  and  in  her  dependencies. 
And  while  I  made  friends  with  a  strange  Japanese  at  a 
hotel  I  saw  how  scoffmgly  racial  intermixture  was  re- 
ceived by  his  own  people.  He  had  just  come  back  to 
Kyoto  with  his  American  wife  and  husky  boy.  He  was 
a  dentist  by  profession  and  planned  to  open  a  factory 
on  the  basis  of  American  efficiency.  He  had  been  as- 
sistant dentist  to  the  Emperor,  and  had  known  many  of 
the  court  people.  In  came  a  stream  of  the  younger  gen- 
eration of  Japanese  officialdom.  He  knew  them  as  mere 
boys.  But  they  looked  askance  at  his  foreign  alliance, 
treated  him  with  scorn,  and  turned  up  their  noses  at  the 
white  woman. 

One  cannot  single  out  one  individual  without  contrast- 
ing that  one  with  the  rest.  This  much  must  be  said: 
that  the  man  who  comes  to  Japan  for  reasons  other  than 
trade  has  a  pretty  lonely  time  of  it.  The  few  foreigners, 
who  are  of  an  intellectual  bent,  find  themselves  in  isola- 
tion. The  missionaries  are  too  clannish — though  how- 
ever much  one  may  differ  from  them  one  must  admit 
that  they  form  the  best  element  among  the  foreign  com- 
munity. One  cannot  live  with  them,  however,  because 
they  cannot  live  with  themselves.  Set  in  their  own  ways, 


436  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

their  intellectualism  becomes  stagnant.  They  do  not 
care  for  personality,  and  unless  you  subscribe  to  their 
point  of  view  they  lose  interest  in  you.  Yet  they  are 
the  dynamic  force  in  the  native  life.  They  distribute 
leaflets  among  passengers  on  trains  in  exactly  the  same 
way  as  socialists  and  I.  W.  W.'s  do  in  the  West,  pam- 
phlets just  as  objectionable  to  the  Japanese. 

Christianity  in  Japan  is  making  slow  progress.  There 
are  to-day  barely  130,000  converts,  and  these,  as  stated 
elsewhere,  are  sliding  back  into  some  sort  of  religious 
half-castism. 

There  have  been  many  great  men  among  those  who 
have  thrown  their  lot  in  with  the  Japanese,  names  like 
those  of  Hearn,  Chamberlain,  Aston,  and  Brinkley. 
One,  however,  has  sacrificed  his  reputation  on  the  altar 
of  criticism,  but  he  will  nonetheless  take  his  place  along 
with  the  others.  That  man  is  Robert  Young,  the 
editor  and  proprietor  of  The  Japan  Chronicle.  It  is 
difficult  to  write  about  one  who  has  borne  the  glory  and 
the  blame  so  modestly  as  has  Mr.  Young.  As  editor, 
he  is  of  course  responsible  for  all  that  The  Japan  Chron- 
icle stands  for,  though  this  statement  is  unjust  both 
ways.  But  few  foreigners  have  done  so  much  for  Japan 
in  general  and  the  foreign  community  in  particular  as 
has  Robert  Young.  A  man  of  remarkable  breadth  of 
view,  of  shrewd  insight  into  Far  Eastern  questions,  a 
humanitarian  in  every  possible  sense  of  the  word,  he 
has  earned  the  respect  and  the  fear  of  native  and  for- 
eigner alike.  For  thirty  years  a  resident  of  Japan,  he 
has  devoted  all  his  time  to  tussling  with  chauvinism  and 
imperialism — at  home  and  abroad.  No  newspaper  in 
the  Orient  has  fought  so  sincerely  against  subsidized 
information  confusing  the  world;  no  newspaper  is  as 
ready  to  side  with  right  as  against  wrong  whether  com- 
mitted by  his  own  country — Great  Britain — or  by  any 
other  as  The  Japan  Chronicle.  And  though  a  man 


SKIMPING  437 

frankly  unreligious  he  took  up  the  cause  of  the  accused 
Korean  Christians  as  earnestly  as  he  would  have  done 
if  they  had  been  confirmed  atheists.  No  one  can  get 
even  a  general  opinion  of  Japanese  questions  without 
reference  to  the  pages  of  The  Japan  Chronicle;  and 
every  one  can  rest  assured  that  those  opinions  and 
accounts  are  reliable  and  tested  by  close  study  of  Far 
Eastern  affairs  of  the  thirty  years  of  Japan's  most  im- 
portant history.  The  world  would  gain  immeasurably 
if  Robert  Young  would  put  his  knowledge  into  book 
form  to  help  solve  the  problems  which  will  face  the 
coming  generations.  He  may  have  been  unremittingly 
critical,  but  never  unjustly  so.  It  is  not  an  easy  thing 
to  be  an  independent  thinker,  especially  in  a  country 
where  a  newspaper  is  suppressed  without  notice  or  reason. 
And  independent  Mr.  Young  has  been. 

No  western  man  is  ever  truly  at  home  in  an  Oriental 
country.  There  is  danger  in  living  there  too  long,  for  then 
one  becomes  either  utterly  disgusted  or  quite  indifferent. 
Japan  is  a  sort  of  mirage.  At  first  it  seems  a  paradise; 
after  a  while  the  charm  is  gone.  There  are  constant  ups 
and  downs,  habits  running  counter  to  one  another.  A 
peck  of  little  things  and  no  ends  of  trouble.  The  whole 
impression  I  have  of  modern  Japan  is  one  of  skimping. 
Shirts  are  short  in  the  seams,  the  green-felt  top  to  a  desk 
short  on  the  edges.  I  asked  a  carpenter  who  had  done 
some  work  for  me  for  a  piece  of  wood  one  by  three- 
quarters  by  one-half  inch  and  he  charged  me  a  sen  (half 
a  cent).  The  landlord  of  my  house  was  a  Christian.  I 
suggested  that  he  have  a  carpenter  cut  some  grooves  in 
the  floor  for  the  glass  doors  I  had  ordered  and  was  to 
leave  with  him,  and  he  said  he  would  have  to  charge  it 
to  me.  It  was  ten  cents.  Everything  is  run  on  that 
basis — as  near  the  edge  as  possible. 

I  have  not  meant  to  deride  nor  to  idealize  Japan.  The 
geographer,  the  explorer  is  not  a  help  to  the  world  if 


438  JAPAN— REAL,  AND  IMAGINARY 

he  fails  to  tell  what  obtains  in  a  given  locality.  If  he 
says  that  a  district  is  level  and  well  watered  when  it  is 
mountainous  or  desert,  he  is  leading  innocent  wanderers 
to  misfortune.  If  the  writer  deliberately  overrates  or 
belies  a  people,  he  is  an  enemy  of  society,  for  this  leads 
to  animosity  and  conflict.  It  may  lead  to  discouraging 
a  nation  instead  of  stimulating  to  betterment.  I  have 
met  its  evil  effects  in  Japan.  "Japanese  were  always 
anxious  about  what  you  foreigners  said  of  us,"  one  told 
me,  "but  now  we  don't  care."  It  has  somewhat  poi- 
soned the  spirit  of  the  people.  Largely,  if  not  entirely, 
it  is  their  own  fault.  While  the  big  concerns  and  the 
government  have  shown  themselves  in  commercial 
matters  eager  and  willing,  the  masses,  the  tradesmen 
and  shopkeepers  and  small  fry  are  inefficient  and  un- 
willing to  learn.  They  would  rather  do  without  than 
do  otherwise.  And  Japan  seems  on  the  very  verge  of 
breakdown.  Inefficiency  is  as  rife  to-day  as  efficiency 
was  ten  years  ago.  There  are  not  enough  trains  to 
move  freight  and  passengers,  not  enough  clerks  to  move 
the  mail,  and  not  enough  schools  to  train  the  youths 
demanding  education. 

The  effect  of  the  transplanting  of  western  ways  to 
Japan  is  ominous.  Artificial  enough  in  themselves  they 
are  not  bad  when  they  are  the  outgrowth  of  ages  of 
experimentation.  But  in  Japan  there  is  not  that  growth. 
The  new  is  plastered  right  on  to  the  old  which  seemed 
much  grander  in  its  ancient  simplicity.  The  danger  is 
that  the  Japanese  begin  to  feel  discouraged,  begin  to 
lose  self-confidence.  The  danger  of  reaction  is  even 
worse.  With  primitive  races,  the  stage  of  development 
is  so  elemental  that  it  is  not  difficult  for  foreign  culture 
and  habits  to  grip  them.  There  is  no  hard,  ingrained 
custom  to  overcome.  But  here  in  Japan  western  civili- 
zation came  in  contact  with  a  civilization  as  perfected 
and  as  rigidly  formed  into  habit  as  it  was  itself.  At 


WELDING  THE  LINK  439 

first  the  Japanese  threw  their  own  away  as  children  do 
their  toys.  To-day  they  realize  their  mistake. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  get  a  Japanese  to  speak  out,  but 
sometimes  unwittingly  he  says  volumes  in  a  phrase.  ' '  I 
sometimes  am  sorry  I  am  Japanese."  I've  heard  these 
very  words  from  the  lips  of  three  different  types,  and  a 
fourth  said:  "Japan  not  so  great.  Some  say  Great 
Japan,  but  Japan  not  so  great,  I  think."  I  can  see 
where  the  coming  sorrows  will  cut  their  deepest  wrinkles 
on  the  faces  of  these  inexpressive  people.  Many  the 
brooding  day  will  see  them  saying  to  themselves  such 
sad  things,  for  exclusion  and  race  prejudice  are  deeper 
even  than  economic  selfishness.  And  Japan,  having 
dug  herself  in,  will  find  it  hard  to  emerge. 

There  are  some  men  to  whom  hatred  and  vilification 
are  second  nature.  Some  cannot  see  good  in  any  one 
other  than  those  of  their  own  brood.  But  there  are 
people  in  Japan,  as  elsewhere,  who  wish  to  abolish  racial 
discrimination,  not  only  as  the  politicians,  who  mean  by 
that  that  discrimination  against  them  alone  be  abolished 
— but  against  others  by  them.  That  is  different. 
The  Japanese  character  is  set,  but  malleable.  To  save 
Japan  from  itself  we  must  stop  exalting  it ;  to  save  our- 
selves from  Japan  we  must  stop  condemning  it. 


XXX 

HISTORICAL    AND    FATIDICAL 

HAVE  read  book  upon  book  of  Japanese  his- 
tory, and,  though  the  subject  is  extremely 
interesting  as  a  study  in  human  behavior,  I 
must  confess  that  it  leaves  me  cold  and  unim- 
pressed. The  mythology  seems  to  me  without 
purpose,  without  aspiration;  the  facts  without  warmth 
and  sympathy.  Not  a  single  instance  of  loyalty  but 
that  it  seems  tarnished  with  treachery  and  intrigue. 
European  history  is  not  one  whit  cleaner,  but  at  least 
there  seems  a  strain  of  aspiration  in  it;  somewhere, 
somehow  it  was  involved  in  some  intellectual  ideal,  some 
moral  reaching.  The  reasoning  inquirer  finds  enough  to 
condemn  and  to  revile,  but  there  is  also  something  lofty, 
something  ethical.  But  the  whole  history  of  Japan  is 
one  incessant  struggle  for  selfish  ends  for  the  supplanting 
of  one  family  by  another.  One  reflects  in  amazement  at 
the  conceptions  of  loyalty.  You  read,  for  instance,  with 
some  thrill  of  the  struggles  of  the  Minamoto  family  to 
regain  the  position  wrested  from  it  by  the  Taira,  and  the 
loyalty  in  exile  of  the  brothers,  Yoritomo  and  Yoshi- 
tsune.  You  are  ready  to  forget  that  even  their  family 
had  succeeded  to  power  by  intrigue  and  by  making 
the  numerous  boy  emperors  less  than  puppets.  You 
are  absorbed  in  the  feats  of  Yoshitsune  and  enjoy  his 
brotherly  generosity — when  suddenly  you  are  shocked 
to  the  very  soul  by  the  hatred  with  which  he  is  pursued 
unto  death  by  his  own  brother. 

First  and  foremost  stand  the  clans,  loyalty  to  which 


HEROIC  CHARACTERISTICS  441 

is  the  basic  principle  of  action.  Of  moral  issues  involved 
in  the  thing  for  which  the  samurai  fought  little  or  no 
consideration  is  shown. 

A  nation  may  be  judged  by  the  heroes  it  adores.  The 
outstanding  feature  of  Japanese  adulation  of  its  great 
men  is  that  they  followed  the  baser  guidance  of  self- 
seeking  men,  for  whom  they  voluntarily  gave  their  lives 
by  seppuku,  while  they  worshiped  an  emperor  stripped 
not  only  of  all  power,  but  of  the  ordinary  comforts  of 
life.  It  seems  so  strange  that,  though  they  gave  proper 
emotional  support  to  the  Tenno,  the  material  support 
flowed  into  the  coffers  of  men  for  whom  they  cared  but 
as  man  for  man.  Another  striking  anomaly  is  that 
though  at  heart  Buddhism,  the  gospel  of  absolute  peace, 
commands  their  devotion,  they  willingly  turned  to 
Shintoism  upon  rescript.  These  inconsistent  manifesta- 
tions of  loyalty  leave  the  interested  seeker  after  the  true 
nature  of  the  Japanese  heart  and  mind  altogether  at  sea. 
Buddhism,  a  religion  decrying  all  hurt,  harbors  for  many 
a  year  the  most  vengeful  pack  of  disgruntled  soldiery, 
who  give  let  to  their  desire  for  revenge  in  repeated  mur- 
derous raids  upon  the  ancient  capital  of  Kyoto;  while 
Shintoism,  the  offspring  of  conquest  and  physical 
prowess  in  the  way  of  the  exalted  Jimmu  Tenno,  the 
first  Emperor,  really  forms  the  nucleus  of  peace  in  Japan. 
Perhaps  no  throne  in  the  history  of  mankind  has  re- 
mained altogether  outside  the  storms  of  political  dis- 
sension as  has  this;  or  perhaps  no  ruler  of  any  king- 
dom has  been  so  long  the  center  of  some  of  the  most 
terrible  scenes  of  slaughter  and  carnage  without  being 
affected  one  way  or  the  other,  as  has  the  Tenno.  In- 
deed, some  are  led  to  doubt  whether  his  could  truly  be 
called  an  imperial  throne,  seeing  how  little  it  concerned 
itself  with  or  was  the  concern  of  the  real  rulers.  Yet 
it  is  not  to  be  wondered  that  the  Japanese  hold  their 
Emperor  in  such  awe,  for  however  little  we  may  admire 


442  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

the  clan  oligarchy,  still  the  Emperor  has  been  the  center, 
the  axis  (be  it  real  or  imaginary)  round  which  has 
wheeled  the  Japanese  world. 

It  is  indeed  an  imaginary  point,  for  as  hero-worship 
it  has  little  foundation  in  fact.  The  Meiji  Tenno  can 
well  be  said  to  have  been  the  only  Emperor  whose  indi- 
vidual worth  has  approximated  his  position.  The 
present  Emperor  has  as  yet  had  little  opportunity  and 
less  inclination  to  show  his  capabilities.  All  others 
were  generally  shorn  of  their  power  before  they  had  a 
chance  to  assume  it  to  advantage.  So  that  we  see  the 
anomaly  of  Shotoku  Taishi  turning  aside  the  throne  in 
his  sister's  favor  in  order  to  be  free  to  do  that  which  he 
felt  he  could  do  for  his  country.  He  wanted  not  praise 
and  glory,  but  opportunity  to  achieve  something  worthy 
and  lasting,  and  he  knew  he  could  do  so  better  as  prince 
regent  than  as  Tenno.  And  he  it  was  who  virtually 
established  Buddhism  as  the  national  religion  of  Japan. 

What,  then,  to  the  casual  observer,  is  the  nature  of 
bushido  and  loyalty  as  it  exists  in  the  mind  of  Japanese  ? 
To  commit  suicide  by  cutting  open  one's  belly  probably 
has  its  basis  in  a  belief  that  the  soul  lies  in  the  pit  of  the 
stomach.  It  typified  the  strength  and  the  weakness  of 
Japanese  character,  for  though  often  done  voluntarily 
as  an  act  of  devotion,  it  was  more  often  submitted  to 
out  of  fear  of  a  worse  fate  at  the  hands  of  the  con- 
queror or,  when  mere  execution  was  the  alternative,  the 
pride  (or  weakness)  associated  with  doing  it  oneself 
encouraged  it.  Even  though  a  man  realized  that  his 
race  had  run  and  that  never  again  would  he  be  able  to 
indulge  any  of  his  physical  desires,  honor  still  dictated 
self-murder.  Yet  it  should  not  be  lost  sight  of  that 
even  at  the  sacrifice  of  honor  thousands  of  "superior" 
Japanese  preferred  degradation  amid  the  outcasts  to 
harakiri. 

Having  thus  lightly  touched  upon  the  essential  points 


CELEBRITIES  443 

in  their  ethical  conceptions,  let  us  view,  in  biographettes, 
the  men  who  stand  high  in  the  estimation  of  the  Japanese. 
Whom  have  they  exalted  and  whom  have  they  emulated? 
First,  whereas  the  Chinese  regard  America  with  the 
utmost  admiration,  the  Japanese  have  taken  Germany 
as  their  standard,  and  their  development  is  in  accordance 
with  their  choice. 

Of  the  accumulation  of  celebrated  personages  ac- 
credited to  nearly  2,500  years  of  history,  Japan  numbers 
but  four  mikados — one  because  he  was  drowned  as  an 
infant;  another,  Go-Daigo  Tenno,  because  of  his  mis- 
fortunes; Jimmu  Tenno,  the  first  Emperor;  and  the 
Empress,  Jingo  Kogo;  the  descendants  of  four  families 
—the  Fujiwara,  Hojo,  Minamoto,  and  Taira;  twenty- 
eight  warriors  (not  to  include  the  Forty-seven  Ronin); 
eleven  clericals;  and  some  twenty-six  poets,  painters, 
dramatists,  novelists,  and  sculptors.  Only  four  women 
writers  rank  very  high. 

All  of  these  cannot  be  said  to  be  held  in  any  great 
veneration,  even  though  they  are  called  to  your  atten- 
tion as  the  cicerone  leads  you  a  tourist  dance  from 
tomb  to  tomb.  The  list  of  real  heroes  is  considerably 
shorter  and  might,  chronologically,  run  as  follows: 

Jimmu  Tenno,  the  first  Emperor  and  warrior;  the 
Empress  Jingo  for  her  attempted  conquest  of  Korea 
1,700  years  ago;  Shotoku  Taishi,  Prince  Regent;  Kobo 
Daishi,  a  saint;  the  trinity  ruling  successively  as  sho- 
guns — Nobunaga,  Hideyoshi,  and  leyasu;  and  in  very 
recent  years  General  Nogi,  who  committed  harakiri 
upon  the  death  of  the  Meiji  Tenno,  the  most  exalted 
of  the  mikados.  There  rank  in  no  lesser  patronage  such 
characters  as  Yoshitsune,  the  young  man  whose  loyalty 
to  his  brother  and  whose  military  genius  are  incompar- 
able. His  brother,  Yoritomo,  knew  loyalty  so  well  that 
he  ordered  him  done  to  death.  To  the  Aino  he  has  be- 
come a  god,  and  some  Japanese  claim  that  he  escaped  to 


444  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

China  and  became  the  great  Kubla  Khan.  In  cases 
where  loyalty  to  the  sovereign  is  pointed  to  as  worthy 
of  veneration,  as  that  of  Kusunoki  Masashige,  the  illus- 
tration is  glossed  over,  for  Masashige  was  struggling 
against  whom  ?  Against  those  who  were  trying  to  under- 
mine the  power  of  the  Mikado.  It  is  therefore  seen  that 
all  cases  of  loyalty  to  the  throne  are  marked  by  parallel 
examples  of  disloyalty.  The  whole  value  of  loyalty 
falls  to  the  ground  when  it  is  divorced  from  ethical  con- 
cepts. And  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  Japanese  mind 
regards  loyalty  per  se  the  great  good  to  be  sought  after, 
and  will  set  upon  an  equal  pedestal  an  act  of  loyalty 
which  is  mere  revenge  with  one  which  has  for  its  aim 
the  attainment  of  an  ideal. 

Few  heroes  hold  the  adoration  of  Japanese  more  than 
Toyotomi  Hideyoshi.  To  him  they  are  as  loyal  as  man 
can  be.  A  brief  sketch  of  his  life  will  suffice.  Though 
born  of  a  nameless  family  whose  antecedents  have  not 
been  clearly  traced  and  at  a  time  when  birth  was  every- 
thing, Hideyoshi  achieved  a  prestige  envied  and  emu- 
lated by  the  greatest  and  the  best.  It  was  a  time  in  the 
history  of  Japan  when  being  a  samurai  was  the  only 
guarantee  of  independence  and  happiness.  Amid  the 
glamour  and  show  in  which  these  two-sworded  soldiers 
moved  and  had  their  being  lived  a  childless  couple. 
According  to  tradition,  they  went  to  the  temple  in  the 
neighborhood  very  often  and  prayed  for  a  son.  One 
night  the  wife  dreamed  the  sun  had  been  with  her  and 
she  was  with  child.  On  New  Year's  Day  Hideyoshi 
was  born.  His  childhood  and  early  poverty,  his  ap- 
prenticeship to  a  band  of  robbers,  his  menial  position 
as  sandal-bearer  to  the  great  shogun,  Oda  Nobunaga, 
who  came  near  bringing  the  numerous  warring  clans  of 
Japan  under  his  control — all  these  facts  now  add  to  the 
luster  of  Hideyoshi.  Nor  does  the  account  of  his  very 
ugly  face  detract  in  the  least  from  his  renown.  Hide- 


THE  TRIUMVIRATE  445 

yoshi  came  into  his  own  as  the  result  of  his  superior  s 
assassination,  but  the  political  conditions  were  very 
unstable.  Hideyoshi  had  the  difficulty  of  taking  the 
reins  of  government  which  had  been  almost  completely 
wrecked  by  the  treachery  of  Mitsuhide.  And  here  is 
where  the  real  greatness  of  Hideyoshi  rests.  Here  is 
where  the  man  appeals  to  me,  for  his  likes  are  rare  in 
the  annals  of  great  militarists.  Hideyoshi 's  magnani- 
mous treatment  of  his  inferiors,  his  humanity  and  genius, 
are  marred  by  but  one  horrible  stain.  All  his  life  he  had 
been  face  to  face  with  brutality  and  butchery  such  as 
run  through  this  period  of  Japanese  history.  Yet  not 
a  more  humane,  more  generous  leader  could  have  come 
to  the  fore.  Indomitable,  vain,  with  an  insatiable  am- 
bition, he  nevertheless  brought  the  daimyos  of  the  land 
under  his  control  by  subterfuge,  but  also  by  force  tem- 
pered with  mercy.  And  the  most  pathetic  incident  in 
his  life  is  likewise  his  most  outrageous.  He  had  lived 
for  many  years,  with  many  wives,  but  failed  to  have  a 
child.  Giving  up  hope,  he  attempted  to  found  a  family 
by  the  not  uncommon  method  in  Japan — adoption. 
He  selected  his  nephew,  Hidetsugu,  as  his  heir,  and  con- 
ferred upon  him  all  the  powers  of  shogun — the  greatest 
in  the  land,  not  excluding  the  Emperor.  But  Hidetsugu 
turned  out  to  be  a  renegade  who,  besides  taking  a  keen 
delight  in  himself  cutting  off  human  heads  as  a  hobby, 
turned  to  plotting  against  the  great  Hideyoshi.  It 
happened  that  just  then  one  of  his  wives,  Hidegumi, 
gave  birth  to  a  son  who  was  named  Hideyori.  Naturally, 
Hideyoshi  regretted  that  he  had  so  prematurely  disposed 
of  his  powers  and  was  not  unwilling  to  find  or  make  some 
excuse  for  regaining  them  for  his  own  son.  Discovery 
of  a  plot  was  sufficient,  and  Hideyoshi  banished  Hide- 
tsugu to  the  Buddhist  monastery  at  Koya-san  in  the  an- 
cient district  of  Yamato,  and  ruthlessly  put  his  children 
to  the  sword  and  every  one  connected  with  him.  His 


446  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

vengeance  knew  no  bounds.  He  did  give  Hidetsugu  the 
privilege  of  a  samurai  to  commit  seppuku.  This  des- 
perate yet  pathetic  attempt  on  the  part  of  Hideyoshi 
to  found  a  family,  however  horrible  in  our  eyes,  is  still 
not  so  revolting  as  the  act  of  his  successor,  leyasu,  who. 
besides  carrying  out  the  same  course  on  Hideyoshi' s 
son,  Hideyori,  razed  the  temple  Hideyoshi  built  to 
himself,  which  is  said  to  have  been  the  most  beautiful 
ever  erected  in  Japan. 

Yet  such  is  the  nature  of  Japanese  conceptions  with 
regard  to  loyalty  that  leyasu  shares  with  Hideyoshi  the 
adoration  of  the  country.  Though  leyasu  had  promised 
Hideyoshi  to  support  Hideyori,  the  moment  his  oppor- 
tunity came  he  brushed  aside  all  sense  of  loyalty  and 
justice.  By  subterfuge  and  deception  he  succeeded  in 
conquering  Hideyori.  After  a  truce  had  been  agreed 
upon,  leyasu  deceived  the  other  and  filled  in  the  moats 
round  Osaka  Castle,  a  fortress  built  by  Hideyoshi  and 
till  then  absolutely  impregnable.  And  when  the  castle 
fell  the  flames  consumed  the  self-murdered  mother  as 
well  as  Hideyori.  Then  he  set  in  motion  a  system  of 
espionage  and  intrigue  which  secured  for  his  line,  the 
Tokugawa  family,  the  ascendancy  over  Japan  for  270 
years.  It  was  this  method  which  kept  the  country  in 
seclusion  for  two  and  a  half  centuries.  And  it  is  doubt- 
less that  selfsame  training  which  to-day  makes  most 
people  in  the  world  so  distrustful  of  the  Japanese.  As 
soon  as  they  outlive  the  secretiveness  and  distrustfulness 
in  which  they  still  are  submerged,  the  Japanese  will  take 
their  place  among  the  nations  of  the  world  without  any 
drawbacks.  But  not  till  then.  For  no  nation  that  can 
exalt  such  rank  disloyalty  can  wholly  claim  to  be  a 
nation  of  bushido.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that,  ac- 
cording to  Basil  Hall  Chamberlain,1  the  greatest  living 

1  Sec  Basil  Hall  Chamberlain's  The  Invention  of  a  New  Religion. 
Watts  &  Co.,  London. 


NO  IMAGE   IN   ALL   JAPAN*   IS   MORF.   HTMAN   AND   I.IFKUKE   THAN   THE   GIANT 

nrnnnA  AT  KAMAKIRA 


«  =a 


SAVING  PORTRAITS  447 

authority  on  things  Japanese  and  Emeritus  Professor 
of  Japanese  and  Philology  at  the  Imperial  University 
of  Tokyo,  the  whole  notion  of  bushido  is  an  invention 
pure  and  simple,  manufactured  and  promulgated  by  the 
oligarchy  of  present-day  Japan  to  secure  its  own  position. 
We  have  also  the  celebrated  case  of  the  Forty-seven 
Ronin.  Their  story  is  supposed  to  thrill  us  with  examples 
of  loyalty  and  devotion.  A  daimyo  has  been  insulted 
and  attempts  to  take  the  life  of  his  superior.  He  fails 
and  is  ordered  to  commit  Jiarakiri,  even  though  his  act 
is  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  times.  His  re- 
tainers dispose  of  their  property  or  have  been  dispos- 
sessed of  it,  and  forty-seven  of  the  most  loyal  of  them 
determine  to  revenge  their  lord's  death.  How  do  they 
go  about  it?  Openly  would  have  meant  destruction; 
so  they  determine  upon  deception.  They  scatter. 
They  desert  their  families,  in  itself  the  most  brutal 
sort  of  disloyalty.  They  affect  dissipation  to  such  an 
extent  that  the  leader  is  said  to  have  wallowed  in  the 
streets  of  Kyoto  and  to  have  made  a  certain  house  of 
prostitution  famous  by  frequenting  it.  To  this  day  the 
place  is  pointed  out  to  you  as  one  of  the  leading  houses 
of  prostitution.  Having  learned  common  trades,  they 
succeed  in  getting  close  to  their  victim,  who,  by  this 
time  completely  off  his  guard,  falls  victim  to  them. 
And  where  do  they  find  him  ?  Not  as  a  lord  and  samu- 
rai, facing  death  fearlessly,  but  in  the  woodshed,  hiding, 
and  finally  dragged  out  to  be  decapitated.  His  head  is 
carried  to  the  tomb  of  their  master  and  they  surrender 
themselves  to  the  authorities.  On  the  way  they  are 
feasted  by  the  multitude  and  by  the  lords,  all  of  whom 
extol  it  as  an  act  of  the  greatest  devotion.  Yet  they 
are  ordered  to  commit  harakiri  just  the  same.  Now 
this  version  of  the  story  is  not  purposely  colored  to  dis- 
credit their  devotion.  But  in  all  such  stories  emphasis 
is  so  cleverly  placed  upon  the  acts  of  some  as  to  make  us 

29 


448  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

completely  overlook  those  of  the  others.  And  if  it  is 
typical  of  Japanese  to  face  death  as  did  these  forty- 
seven,  why  is  it  not  equally  as  typical  of  them  to  face 
it  as  did  that  other — in  the  woodshed? 

No  act  of  loyalty  in  the  whole  history  of  Japan  stands 
out  more  pure  and  free  from  personal  advantage  than 
the  suicide  of  General  Nogi.  This  self-sacrifice  brings  a 
thrill  to  every  Japanese  heart.  A  man  of  simple  birth, 
he  rose  to  fame  in  the  struggle  with  Russia,  and  upon 
the  death  of  the  Meiji  Tenno  he  and  his  wife  committed 
harakiri.  Their  motive  was  twofold.  First,  the  general 
wanted  to  be  with  the  Emperor,  who  had  befriended  him, 
in  the  other  world.  Second,  seeing  the  profligacy  of 
his  fellow-countrymen,  their  craze  after  wealth  and 
power  in  recent  years,  he  wished — himself  a  man  of  the 
most  frugal  habits — to  impress  a  great  moral  lesson 
upon  his  people.  He  made  himself  loved  and  venerated 
and  deified — but  one  wonders  whether  he  accomplished 
his  sincere  aim.  Girls  still  hanker  after  extravagant 
bows  of  silk  for  their  girdles,  and  men  dress  in  expensive 
silk  clothes,  though  for  a  while  the  impression  left  by 
the  general's  act  was  great. 

Other  acts  of  self-murder  out  of  a  false  sense  of  loyalty 
are  not  wanting.  Once  the  Emperor's  train  went  in  a 
dangerous  direction.  The  engineer  committed  suicide. 
People  collected  large  sums  of  money  for  the  suicide's 
family. 

A  fire  broke  out  in  a  school,  and  at  the  risk  of  his  life 
a  teacher  rushed  in  to  save  the  Emperor's  portrait— 
which  could  easily  be  replaced  for  a  few  yen.  The  whole 
Empire  applauded.  Another  man  left  his  wife  and  two 
children  in  a  burning  house  to  look  after  themselves 
while  he  tried  to  save  the  pictures  of  the  Emperor  and 
Empress.  And  once  while  watching  the  firemen  playing 
at  extinguishing  the  fire  of  the  Kobe  Middle  School,  a 
Japanese  told  me  enthusiastically  not  to  forget  to  report 


THE  CREAKING  OF  EMPIRE  449 

to  the  paper  that  the  picture  of  the  Emperor  had  been 
saved. 

Opinion  is  nowadays  divided  on  this  question.  Some 
people  are  raising  a  cry  against  it.  And,  indeed,  one 
wonders  how  much  fear  of  punishment  rather  than  gen- 
uine loyalty  obtains  in  such  practices.  It  is  not  more 
than  a  couple  of  generations  since  a  commoner  was  cut 
down  with  nonchalance  when  he  crossed  the  path  of  one 
of  the  nobility.  In  the  Middle  Ages  it  happened  even 
when  a  person  kicked  a  dog  whose  protection  had  been 
guaranteed  by  edict.  People  no  more  fall  prostrate  on 
their  knees  in  the  presence  of  royalty,  but  the  check  on 
Japanese  impulse  still  obtains. 

Yet  the  impulse  rises  well  enough.  It  breaks  out  in 
spurts  of  fanatical  devotion,  a  devotion  which  turns  the 
footsteps  of  every  Japanese  in  the  direction  of  Yamada 
Ise,  the  Mecca  of  Japan.  Thither  the  pilgrims  go; 
thither  the  Emperor  goes  to  lay  before  his  "divine" 
ancestors  all  the  joys  and  burdens  of  his  heart.  It  is 
called  the  Fountain-head  of  Shintoism,  but  it  is  only  a 
group  of  primitive  shacks  with  thatched  roofs  set  well 
within  fenced  inclosures  and  in  one  of  the  pretty  wooded 
hills  along  the  eastern  coast.  Every  twenty  years  the 
shacks  are  rebuilt — and  have  been  for  over  twenty  cen- 
turies. And  for  over  twenty  centuries  the  teeming 
millions  of  the  Empire  have  come  and  gazed  and  grunted 
the  native  "Mah!"  of  surprise;  and  emperors  have 
brought  notice  of  success  in  war  and  treachery,  of  sorrow 
and  ascent.  Before  these  shrines  of  the  illustrious  the 
ill-fated,  the  eclipsed  and  poverty-stricken  rulers,  suc- 
cession after  succession  of  mikados  and  succession  after 
succession  of  generations,  have  bowed  till  the  habit  has 
become  an  inherited  conviction.  It  is  easy  to  convince 
a  people  provided  you  insist  long  enough,  and  though 
adoption,  concubinage,  and  eclipse  have  broken  into  the 
line  of  sovereigns,  it  will  take  ages  more  or  a  serious 


450  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

cataclysm  to  change  the  conviction  of  the  Japanese  that 
their  emperors  are  of  divine  origin.  And  death  will  con- 
tinue to  add  to  the  gallery  of  gods  kept  in  the  shacklike 
shrines  as  primitive  as  the  idea  of  the  divinity  of  rulers  is 
primitive. 

The  hydra-headed  monster  of  imperialism  still  men- 
aces the  world.  In  Moissaye  J.  Olgin's  The  Soul  of  the 
Russian  Revolution  we  read  on  page  58: 

All  power  has  its  derivation  from  God,  says  Katkov.  The  Russian 
Tsar,  however,  was  granted  a  special  significance,  distinguishing 
him  from  the  rest  of  the  world's  rulers.  He  is  not  only  the  Tsar  of 
his  land  and  the  leader  of  his  people,  he  is  designated  by  God  to  be 
the  guardian  and  custodian  of  the  Orthodox  Church.  The  Russian 
Tsar  is  more  than  an  heir  to  his  ancestors,  he  is  a  successor  to  the 
Church  and  its  conclaves,  the  founders  of  the  very  Creed  of  the  Faith 
of  Christ.  With  the  fall  of  Byzantium,  Moscow  arose  and  the 
grandeur  of  Russia  began.  Herein  lies  the  mystery  of  the  deep  dis- 
tinction between  Russia  and  all  the  nations  of  the  world. 

The  Russian  Czar  is  now  not  even  able  to  reflect  on 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  this  statement.  Yet  the  German 
Czar,  laid  low,  still  dreams  of  resuscitation.  Still  tri- 
umphant and  supreme  stands  the  Japanese  Czar,  and 
the  Niroku,  a  Japanese  journal,  repeats  the  blind  blunder 
in  the  following : 

To  preserve  the  world's  peace  and  promote  the  welfare  of  mankind 
is  the  mission  of  the  imperial  family  of  Japan.  Heaven  has  invested 
the  imperial  family  with  all  the  necessary  qualifications  to  fulfil  this 
mission. 

He  who  can  fulfil  this  mission  is  one  who  is  the  object  of  humanity's 
admiration  and  adoration  and  who  holds  the  prerogative  of  adminis- 
tration forever.  The  imperial  family  of  Japan  is  as  worthy  of  respect 
as  God  and  is  the  embodiment  of  benevolence  and  justice.  The 
great  principle  of  the  imperial  family  is  to  make  popular  interests 
paramount. 

The  imperial  family  of  Japan  is  the  parent  not  only  of  her  sixty 
millions,  but  of  all  mankind  on  earth.  In  the  eyes  of  the  imperial 
family  all  races  are  one  and  the  same;  it  is  above  all  racial  considera- 


CZAR,  KAISER,  MIKADO  451 

tions.  All  human  disputes,  therefore,  may  be  settled  in  accordance 
with  its  immaculate  justice.  The  League  of  Nations,  proposed  to 
save  mankind  from  the  horrors  of  war,  can  only  attain  its  real  object 
by  placing  the  imperial  family  at  its  head,  for  to  attain  its  objects 
the  League  must  have  a  strong  punitive  force  of  super-national  and 
super-racial  character,  and  this  force  can  only  be  found  in  the  imperial 
family  of  Japan. 

There's  nothing  like  being  up-to-date  without  changing 
a  vestige  of  one's  old  habits.  And  there's  none  more 
able  to  play  at  that  game  than  Japan's  imperialists. 

Their  gallery  of  heroes  is  to  the  Japanese  not  the  tomb 
of  the  dead.  Ancestors  live  in  as  real  a  sense  as  a 
brother  gone  to  America  still  lives,  and  the  part  they 
play  in  life  is  not  merely  one  of  stimulus.  Shintoism  is 
the  vehicle  for  all  that  is  desirable  to  the  government, 
and  though  missionaries  try  to  belittle  its  influence  and 
many  natives  profess  their  disbelief  by  declaring  "it  is 
my  duty  to  believe  it,"  still  it  is  a  force  not  to  be  ignored. 
Limited  to  mere  adoration  of  a  symbol,  it  is  picturesque 
and  praiseworthy;  translated  into  a  force  for  the  fur- 
therance of  oligarchical  ambition,  its  danger  is  illimitable. 
To  this  very  day  the  dentist  or  doctor  treating  the  Em- 
peror or  Empress  must  wear  silk  gloves  so  as  not  to 
touch  the  august  person.  There  was  a  bridge  in  Japan 
in  a  dangerous  state  of  disrepair,  but  nothing  was  done 
until  on  occasion  H.  I.  H.  the  Crown  Prince  had  to  pass 
by,  not  over  it.  Then  it  was  rebuilt  entirely  so  as  to 
remove  an  unsightly  thing  which  the  Prince  might  see 
from  his  train. 

Whether  Shintoism — 'Emperor  and  nature  worship — 
will  stand  in  the  way  of  political  and  intellectual  progress 
in  Japan  is  doubtful.  It  is  one  of  those  bags  of  fable 
into  which  all  manner  of  beliefs  and  policies  may  be  put 
without  overtaxing  its  assimilative  capacities.  Just  as 
it  took  in  Buddhism,  so  it  may  find  a  way  of  taking  in 
democracy. 


452  JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 

When  Francis  Xavier,  the  Jesuit  missionary,  showed 
the  Japanese  barons  that  it  was  to  their  advantage  to 
adopt  Christianity,  they  made  a  clean  sweep  of  Buddhism 
and  Shintoism.  What  will  happen  when  they  see  the 
advantage  in  democracy  remains  to  be  seen.  Japan  has 
grown  too  much  to  be  able  to  shut  herself  off  from  world 
tendencies.  Her  flag,  a  round  red  sun  against  a  world 
of  icy  nothingness,  can  no  longer  be  her  real  symbol. 
No  matter  how  much  she  may  consider  herself  superior 
to  the  rest  of  the  world,  she  will  find  that  she  is  made 
of  the  common  stuff  of  humanity. 

But  where  in  all  Japan  is  there  to-day  a  great  man,  a 
person  with  the  vision  and  the  forcefulness  of  a  Hide- 
yoshi?  Mr.  Yukio  Ozaki  is  the  adoration  of  the  people. 
He  recently  went  abroad  to  study  world  conditions  with 
a  view  to  forming  a  party  of  labor  and  democracy  upon 
his  return.  Japan  needs  a  man  and  a  cause.  The 
people  need  awakening  to  the  real  meaning  of  life. 
Shintoism  must  be  displaced.  What  mankind  needs  is 
world  consciousness.  Not  exclusion,  but  inclusion.  Not 
inclusion  by  conquest,  as  has  been  the  aggressive,  imperi- 
alistic policy  of  Japan  since  her  first  war  with  China 
— the  breaking  of  her  pledge  to  Korea  and  then  at- 
tempting to  cure  the  wound  by  Shintoist  Christian 
Science.  But  Japan,  desiring  the  elimination  of  racial 
discrimination,  should  step  down  from  her  pedestal  and 
walk  proudly  among  men. 


INDEX 


Actor,  409. 

Agriculture,  373;    Bureau  of,  374- 

376. 

Aino.322,324,443. 
Aiyabe,  296. 
Akashi,    180,    188;     time   meridian 

for  Japan  at,  187. 
Amano-Hashidate,   the   Ladder   of 

Heaven,  295. 
America,  342,  423,  425,  435,  443, 

451- 
Amusements,    57,    427;     and    the 

censor,  125. 
Ancestors,  101. 
Animals,    so-called    sacred,    kindly 

treated,  115;    treatment  of,  322. 
Anti-Americanism,  435. 
Arashiyama,  280. 
Arima,  296. 
Arima-michi,  65. 
Art,  381,  382,  409,  419. 
Ashikaga,  family  of  shoguns,   163; 

Goshimitsu,  275. 
Ashikagas,  276. 
Aston,  W.  G.,  436. 
Atheists,  427. 
Atsumori,  183. 
Australia,  424. 
Awaji  Island,  32;    of  mythological 

origin,  190;  slowly  sinking,  191. 


B 

Babies,  9,  419. 

Barber  shop,  105. 

Barons,  452. 

Bathing,  292,  431. 

Baths,  28,  29,  30,  291 ;  public,  20. 

"Beds,"  27. 

Beggars,  25,  334. 

Bicycles,  25. 

Birth-rate,  106,  331. 


Biwa-ko,  largest  lake  in  Japan,  257. 

Black,  Mr.  403. 

Blossom-time,  114. 

Boarder,  150. 

Boarding-houses,  33. 

Bonus,  353,  354. 

Book  of  Tea,  217. 

Book-stores,  100;  crowded  by  chil- 
dren, no. 

Boys,  109,  ln-112. 

Boy  Scouts,  385. 

Bribes,  367. 

Brinkley,  Capt.  F.,  436. 

British  Museum,  418. 

Buddha,  228,  301 ;  bronze  image  of, 
239;  candles  for,  245. 

Buddhism,  145,  159,  168,  182,  229, 
234,  250,  254,  267,  316,  322,  323, 

331,  341,  3««,  441,  442,  445,  451, 
452;  effect  of,  seen  in  neglect  of 
animals,  240. 

Buddhist  architecture,  293. 

Bunji,  Mr.  Suzuki,  360. 

Bunten,  418,  419. 

Bureaucracy,    365-378,    429,    432, 

435- 
Bushido,  316,  369,  390,  429,  442, 

446,  447- 

Business,  368,  437;  man,  134;  on 
American  system,  21. 


Capital  punishment,  349. 
Carp,  floating,  a  symbol,  107. 
Catarrhs,  children  with,  7. 
Cells,  prison,  339,  340. 
Censorship,  402-408,  426,  435. 
Chamberlain,  Basil  Hall,  436,  446. 
Charity,  369,  370. 
Chauvinism,  430. 
Cherry-trees     over     two     hundred 

years  old,  263. 
Child-bearing,  106. 


454 


JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 


Childish  pranks,  no. 

Children,  106,  107,  322,  426;  rear- 
ing of,  99. 

China,  380,  406,  444,  452. 

Chinese,  322, 324,  356,  381,  423,  443. 

Chomei,  hermit  saint  of  Hiei-san,  81. 

Choshu,  206. 

Christianity,  327,  436,  439,  452. 

Christian  Science,  452. 

Church,  450. 

Cinematograph  theater,  123. 

City  of  Kobe,  10. 

Clans,  424,  440. 

Cleanliness,  7,  39. 

Clear  Water  Temple,  267. 

Clogs,  wood,  straw,  sandals,  7,  9. 

Cloth  carp,  106. 

Coal  deposits,  6. 

Coal-heavers,  girl,  4. 

Commerce,  352,  369,  437. 

Commercialism,  17. 

Commercial  school,  389. 

Communal  spirit,  97. 

Communications,  Department  of, 
358. 

Contract  labor,  342. 

Coolie,  the  female,  26,  135. 

Co-operatives,  364. 

Corporal  punishment,  345. 

Cost  of  living,  354,  356,  361,  362, 
365-366,  391- 

Costumes,  9,  99,  100,  413. 

Courtesy,  424,  425,  426,  434. 

Court-house,  338. 

Courts,  348. 

Crime,  346,  348,  349,  368;  ses 
Prisons. 

Crowds,  216. 

Crown  Prince,  451. 

Cruelty,  114,  427;  to  animals,  115. 

Cushions,  84. 

Customs,  1 8,  21. 

Czar,  450. 

Czarevitch,  349. 

D 

Daikon,  248,  361. 
Daimyo,  382,  417,  430,  433. 
Danjiro,  410. 
Deer,  115. 
Delay,  chronic,  130. 
Democracy,  352,  373,  401,  407,  435, 
451,  452. 


Dinner,  an  elaborate,  57. 

Disease,  331. 

Division  Street,  12. 

Dockyards,  363. 

Dogs,  241 ;  sacred  at  Koya-san,  115. 

Doshisha  University,  332. 

Dow,  Arthur  Wesley,  the  American 

painter,  278. 
Drama,  409,  443. 
Drunkenness,  281. 


E 

Ebisu,  369. 
Education,  379-401. 
Efficiency,  438. 

Electricity  in  a  monastery,  246. 
Electric  lighting,  29,  84. 
Emigrants,  14. 
Emperor,  216,  236,  349,  365,  378, 

383,  384,  385,  394,  395,  396,  433, 

435,  445- 
Emperor- worship,    431,    441,    448, 

449,  450,  45i. 
Empress  Jingo  Kogo,  150. 
English,    318,    397-400,    401,    406; 

instruction  in,  387;  lessons  in,  47. 
Eta,  315-328,  333,  37i,  41°. 
Etajima,  327. 
Europe,  423. 
Europeans,  382. 

F 

Factories,  331,  363,  367,  369;    see 

Strikes. 

Family  differences,  73. 
Fan,  4 .13-41 4. 
Fanaticism,  426,  430. 
Farce,  412. 
Feastings,  57. 
Features,  41. 
Fencing,  116. 

Fenollosa,  Ernest,  278,  417. 
Festivals,  285. 
Feudalism,  360,  361,  382,  425,  430, 

446. 

Fishing-vessels,  5. 
Flag,  452. 
Flood  of  1917,  220. 
Flute,  82. 

Food,  15,  36,  146;  Japanese,  13. 
Foreigners,  357,  386,  432,  433,  434, 

436. 


INDEX 


455 


Foreign  settlement,  17. 

Forty-seven  Ronin,  425,  443,  447. 

Francis  Xavier,  452. 

Friendliness,  102. 

Fue,  82,  196. 

Fuji,  302-311 ;  worship,  309. 

Fujiwara  family,  443. 

Fukui,  297. 

Fume  San,  42. 

Funerals,   101,  157,  160,  161,  164. 

Fushimi  Province,  320. 

Futon,  18,  56,  197,  249. 


Gambling,  332. 

Games,  53,  107,  426. 

Gardens,  29. 

Goisha,  15,  53,  55,  57,  58,  60,  62, 
64,  66,  101,  185,  241,  367,  410, 
424,  425,  426;  and  prostitutes, 
adjacent  quarters,  68;  choice  of 
eight  hundred,  offered,  63 ;  dancing, 
219;  get  to  be  tiresome,  70;  girls, 
217;  song,  61 ;  where  they  live,  63. 

Genji  Monogatori,  279. 

Germans,  389,  391. 

Germany,  349,  443,  450. 

C,eta,  62,  no,  334,  340,  342,  343. 

Ciion  niatsuri,  260,  281. 

Girls,  392;  flower,  52. 

Glass  factories,  222. 

Co,  283. 

Go-Daigo,  Emperor,  163,  328;  ten- 
no,  443. 

Goddess  of  Mercy,  268. 

Godowns,  17. 

Gods,  8. 

Cohan,  50. 

Cokyo-Den,  349. 

Golden  Pavilion,  268,  274,  275. 

Gompers,  Samuel,  361. 

Coshi,  163. 

Gotemba,  302,  303,  307,  308. 

Goto,  Baron,  370,  406. 

Government,  351,  357,  362,  435, 
451;  ownership,  365;  see  Bureau- 
cracy. 

Great  Britain,  436. 


Habufae,  298. 
Hagi,  206. 


"Hana,"  52. 

Kara,  Premier,  371,  373,  405. 

Harakiri,  253,  323,  441,  442,  443, 

447,  448;  -maru,  193. 
Harima  province,  192. 
Health,  391 ;   see  Hygiene. 
Hearn,  Lafcadio,  436. 
Heian,  Kyoto,  381. 
Heimin,  326. 
Hibachi,  6,  23,  217. 
Hibiya  Park,  361. 
Hidegumi,  445. 
Hidetsugu,  445,  446. 
Hideyori,  445,  446. 
Hideyoshi,  194,  223,  224,  280,  297, 

382,  396,  425,  428,  429,  430,  443, 

444,  445,  446,  452;  shrine  of,  293. 
Hiei-san,  224,  276. 
Himeji,  195,  339,  344*;    its  ancient 

castle,  192;  its  prisoners  of  war, 

195- 

Hinin,  320. 

History,  381 ;  of  Japan,  440. 
Hojo  family,  443. 
Hokkaido,  371. 
Holidays,  146,  148. 
Home  Department,  359. 
Home  life,  88,  91;   in  Japan,  83. 
Homes,  29;    absence  of  privacy  in, 

58. 

Homyo-in,  278. 
Hongwanji  temples,  268. 
Hospital,  341,  344. 
Hotel,  Japanese,  12. 
Hotels,  19. 

House,  a  twelve-and-a-half-mat,  79. 
Housecleaning,  compulsory,  85. 
Household,  woman's  worth  in,  92. 
Housekeeping  difficulties,  82. 
Houses,  6,  39;    interior,  214;    not 

enough  in  Kobe,  77. 
Housing,  334,  335,  336,  377. 
Hozugawa  Rapids,  280. 
Hygiene,  392,  393. 
Hyogo,  32,67,  163,  180,  319,  366. 
Hysteria,  426,  427,  428. 

I 

"  Ice-cream,"  52. 

leyasu,  443,  446;  tomb  of,  20,3; 
founder  of  Tokugawa  family, 
224;  Tokugawa,  349,  381;  the 
arch-cxclusionist,  223. 


456 


JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 


Immigration,  351,  376. 

Imperial  Hotel,  Tokyo,  289. 

Imperialism,  299,  307,  315,  352,  373, 
390,  426,  427,  431,  449,  450,  451; 
see  Tennoism. 

Industrialism,  315,  326,  331;  com- 
parison with  American,  129. 

Industrialization,  364,  371,  372. 

Industrial  methods,  128. 

Industry,  344,  345,  353. 

Influenza,  431. 

Inland  Sea,  5,  9,  10,  35,  181,  1 86, 
195,  199,  201,  319. 

Inouye,  Count,  383. 

Intermarriage,  432,  435. 

Invention  of  a  new  religion,  436. 

Iron  Heel,  428. 

Ishida  Mitsunari,  430. 

Ishiyama-dera,  279. 

Ito  Chiyu,  349. 

Ito,  Prince,  383. 

Izanagi  and  Izanami,  5,  190. 


Japan  Advertiser,  405. 

Japan  Chronicle,  377,  405,  407,  436, 

437- 

Japan,  creation  of,  191;  life  in  old, 
65;  pleasant  and  unpleasant 
sides  of,  29. 

"Japanese  way,"  51. 

Jesuits,  452. 

Jimmu  Tenno,  407;  the  first  Em- 
peror, 223,  441,  443. 

Jingo  Kogo,  443. 

Jinrikisha,  140;  puller,  40. 

Jizo,  god  of  travelers,  244. 

Jo-no-mai,  413. 

Judges,  348. 

Judiciary,  348-35°- 

Judo,  117. 

Juvenile  crime,  347. 


K 

Kagawa,  Mr.  Toyohito,  324,  329. 

Kakemono,  418. 

Kamakura,  301. 

Kamogawa,  321. 

Kangokusho  (penitentiary),  337. 

Karakami,  80,  278. 

Karuizawa,  298. 


Katkov,  450. 

Kato,  Viscount,  372. 

Kawaramono,  321,  409,  410. 

Kawasaki  dockyards,  363. 

Kenseikai,  372,  373. 

Kii  Channel,  32,  186. 

Kimigaya  (National  Anthem),  394. 

Kindergarten,  392. 

Kinkakuji,  274. 

Kitakaze  San,  163. 

Kitchen,  253. 

Kobe,  ii,  16,  31,  85,  151,  317,  319, 
323,  324,  332,  335,  337,  344,  346, 
348,  352,  358,  360,  363,  367,  370; 
cages  and  syphilis,  76;  Higher 
Commercial  School,  387,  389; 
Hyogo,  shinto  shrine  most  favored 
temple  in  Japan,  descriptive,  151 ; 
Kumochi,  a  district  of,  1 57 ;  public 
baths,  29;  street  conditions,  210; 
the  brains  of  New  Japan,  179. 

Kobo  Daishi,  247,  272,  274,  380, 
443;  saint,  273;  tomb  of,  252. 

Kohara,  Mr.,  copper-king,  254. 

Kojiki  (history),  381. 

Kojima,  Judge,  350. 

Kokusai  Tsushinsha  (News  Agency) , 
408. 

Kondo  or  Golden  Hall,  253. 

Korea,  405,  429,  443,  452. 

Koreans,   322,   324,   348,   357,  363, 

419,  437- 

Kosuke,  Tomeoka,  324. 

Koya-san,  445. 

Kubla  Khan,  444. 

Kuramaguchi,  321. 

Kusunoki  Masashige,  444. 

Kutani  ware,  298. 

Kwannon,  268. 

Kwansai  Rodo  Domeikai  (Kwansai 
Labor  Union),  360. 

Kyogen  (farce),  412. 

Kyo-mizu,  270. 

Kyoto,  208,  211,  282,  299,  317,  319, 
320,  323,  324,  325,  332,  333,  335, 
350,  3^0,  367,  38o,  381,  399,  410, 
418,  435,  441,  447;  best  laid  put 
of  any  Japanese  city,  259;  build- 
ings up-to-date,  258;  classic 
Japan,  179;  Emperor  Kwammu, 
256;  New  Year  visits,  262;  sta- 
tion, 296;  the  heart  of  Japan, 

257- 
Kyushu,  206,  367. 


INDEX 


457 


Labor,  332,  351-364,  369,  372,  373, 
374,  375;  and  singing,  72;  an 
example  of  waste  in  human  toil, 
133;  cheap,  84,  210;  irregular 
hours  of,  129;  party,  372;  situation 
in  Japan,  134;  union,  359, 360, 372, 
375,376,377,378;  waste,  133;  see 
Strikes,  Industry,  Factories. 

Laborers,  195. 

Lake  Biwa,  277,  279. 

Landlords,  334,  433. 

"Language"  lessons,  19. 

Languages,  three,  in  Japan,  47. 

League  of  Nations,  451. 

Letters  by  zealous  students,  138. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  384. 

Literature,  381,  382. 

Living  conditions,  13. 

Living,  cost  of,  24. 

Locksmiths,  83. 

London, Jack,  428. 

Lovers,  89. 

Loyalty,  444. 

M 

Maizuru,  296;  on  the  Japan  Sea,  295. 

Makie  ware,  298. 

"  Mame,"  52. 

Manners,  19,  44,  93,  102. 

Manufacturers,  223. 

Maories,  323,  428. 

Markets,  377. 

Marriage,  91,  326;  legal  form  often 

neglected,  74. 

Maruyama,  Mr.,  404;   Park,  263. 
Masashige,  Kusunoki,  328. 
Masks,  413. 

Masumoto,  Mr.,  374,  377. 
Mathematics,  381. 
Mats,    standard  of  measurements, 

34;  their  cost,  77. 
Matsuri,  264. 
Maya-san,  44. 
Meals,  64. 
Medicine,  381. 
Meiji  era,  365. 
Meiji  Tenno,  349,  365,  409,  442,  443, 

448. 

Men,  100;   effeminate  ways  of,  89. 
Mii-dera,  277,  278. 
Mikado,  385,  444,  451. 


Mikadoism,  431. 

Mikado's  former  palace,  275. 

Militarism,  108,  323,  372,  390,  429. 

Minamoto,  443;    family,  440. 

Minatogawa,  02,  363,  410. 

Miners,  354,  355,  356,  376. 

Minister  of  Communications,  57. 

Minstrels,  25. 

Missionaries,    276,    317,    327,    401, 

435,  451,  452. 

Missionary  work,  156. 

Mitsuhide,  445. 

Mitsui  Bishi  Kaisha,  253,  370. 

Mitsui  Bussan  Kaislia,  371. 

Miyajima,  198,  199,  201,  202;  the 
famous  torii,  202;  torii,  its  sig- 
nificance as  symbol,  203. 

Mochi,  146,  253,  260. 

Modernism,  168;    Japanese,  15. 

Moji,  6,  9,  206;  temple,  8. 

Monogamy,  first  adopted  by  pres- 
ent Emperor,  62. 

Morals,  59,  315,   384,  385,  397,  426, 

43i. 

Mori,  Viscount,  386. 

Motherhood,  unashamed,  99. 

Motor-cars,  101. 

Mount  Asama,  298. 

Movies,  103,  125;  enlightening 
Japan,  126;  influence  of,  in  de- 
mocratization, 124. 

Murasaki  Shikibu,  278,  279. 

Murdoch,  James,  322. 

Music,  420. 

Mythology,  440. 

N 

Nagasaki,  206,  207,  370;  Press,  207; 

the  thumb,  179. 
Nagoya,  301,  319,  367,  420. 
Naniwa  Odori,  2 1 6. 
Naoetsu,  298. 
Nara,  208,  228,  232,  392;    cameras 

prohibited    in,    236;     Koya-san, 

243;     mythological    Japan,    179; 

Osaka,  Kyoto,  people  from,  233; 

seat   of   Japanese    Empire,    234; 

the  park  at,  240;    yearly  festival 

at,  227. 
Nankin,  53,  54,  56,  57,   101,  251, 

273,  353,  356,  369,  3/0,  371,  372, 
417,  420;   homes,  82. 
Nashimoto,  Prince,  236. 


45$ 


JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 


National  Anthem,  394. 

National  Gallery,  418. 

Nature,  love  of,  310;  worship,  451. 

Navy,  327,  363. 

Neighbor,  a  new,  50. 

Neighborhood,  typical  Japanese,  81. 

Newsboys,  25. 

Newspapers,    181,    357,    436,    450; 

see  Press. 
New  Year's,  chief  national  holiday, 

145;  Eve,  260. 

New  Zealand,  323,  389,  424,  428. 
Nicholas  I,  349. 
Nightside  of  Japan,  43 1 . 
Niigata,  354. 
Nikko,  293. 
Nippon  Rodo  Kumiai  (Japan  Labor 

Union),  360. 
Niroku,  350. 

Nishimura's  silk-store,  284. 
No,  410-417. 

Nobunaga,  223,  276,  380,  443,  444. 
Nogi,  General,  206,  448. 
Nogouchi,  325. 
Novelists,  443. 
Nude,  419. 
Numazu,  302. 
Nurseries,  331. 

O 

Obi,  55,  56,  103. 

Odors,  28. 

Officialdom,  435. 

Officials,  381. 

Ohara,  277. 

Okiku,  194. 

Okuma,  Count,  320,  386,  407. 

Olgin,  Moissaye  J.,  450. 

Oligarchy,  371;   see  Bureaucracy. 

Onomichi,  199;  fishing-smacks,  199; 
the  "strand,"  199. 

Opera,  412. 

Orchestra,  420. 

Osaka,  208,  209,  210,  211,  213,  223, 
352,  354,  36o,  366,  3^7;  Asahi, 
404,  405;  Bay,  31,  32;  Castle, 
446;  electric  signs,  210;  great 
clearing-house,  211;  history  of, 
223;  iron-works,  354,  355;  junks 
and  launches,  223;  modern  com- 
mercial Japan,  179;  Naniwa 
castle,  224;  odori,  219;  Shin- 
shaibashi,  210;  street  conditions, 


210;    "Sunrise  Restaurant,"  212; 

taxis,  210;   theaters,  212;   Tenoji 

Park, 212. 
Otsu,  277,  278. 
Outcasts,  315-328. 
Ozaki,  Mr.  Yukio,  235,  372,  452. 


Pageantry,  264. 

Pagoda,  220. 

Painters,  443. 

Painting,  418. 

Pan,  15. 

Parents,  respect  for,  90. 

Peace,  429-430;   Conference,  361. 

Peers,  373. 

Penitentiary,  337. 

Phonograph,  420. 

Physicians,  353;  visiting,  7. 

Pilgrims,  306,  449. 

Pillows,  wooden,  56. 

Plague  in  876,  282. 

Playgrounds,  children's,  8. 

Plum  dance,  413. 

Poetry,  381,  427. 

Poets,  443. 

Police,  359,  360,  427,  433;  inspec- 
tion, 85. 

Pooley,  A.  M.,  407. 

Population,  371;   increase  in,  99. 

Post-office,  358,  362,  377. 

Poverty,  63,  315,  343,  344,  373, 
391 ;  see  Slums. 

Press,  402-409. 

Priests,  16,  25,  249,  261. 

Prince,  451. 

Prince  Arthur  of  Connaught,  a 
contrast,  237. 

Prince  Ito,  206. 

Princess  Der  Ling,  423. 

Prisons,  326,  337-347,  424;  see 
Crime. 

Privacy,  lack  of,  45. 

Profiteer,  355. 

Prohibition,  262. 

Proletariat,  406. 

Propaganda,  329,  435. 

Prostitute,  the  tale  of  a,  68. 

Prostitutes,  a  semicircle  of,  69;  re- 
stricted districts  for,  68. 

Prostitution,  447;  legalized  in  Ja- 
pan, 69. 

Public  Markets,  366. 


INDEX 


459 


R 

Race  prejudice,  16. 

Race-suicide,  99,  106. 

Racial    discrimination,     360,     377, 

452. 

Railroads,  299,  352,  357,  377. 
Rain,  98. 
Rats,  24. 
Recreations,  116. 
Regulations,  7. 

Religion,  144, 272, 369, 427,  436. 
Rents,  77,  79. 
Rescript,  379, 394-395- 
Residences,  fine,  8. 
Renter's  Agency,  408. 
Rice  riots,  289,  317,  319,  326,  332, 

346,   348,    355,    361,    369,    371, 

373- 

Rickshaw  man,  139,  147. 
Rickshaws,  25,  67,  101,  433. 
Riot,  353. 
Roads,  378. 
Rooms,  18. 
Runners,  25. 

Russia,  349,  361,  406,  448. 
Russian  Revolution,  450. 
Russo-Japanese  War,  331. 


Saigo,  Minister,  350. 

Sailing-vessels,  10,33. 

Sake,  56,  66,  121,  248,  354,  371. 

Safo-brewing  establishment,  71. 

Saki,  263. 

Salvation  Army,  331. 

Samisen,  66,  218. 

Samurai,    65,    108,    323,   324,   326, 

329-330,  359,  429,  441. 
Sanitation,  329-330;   absence  of,  7. 
Sanka, 320. 
Scandal,  366-367. 
Schools,  7;  attendance,  107;  peculiar 

ideas,   137;    327,   331,  346,  390, 

392.  442- 
Science,  381. 
Sculptors,  443. 
Seamen,  363. 
Seiyojin,  82. 

Sekigahara,  battle  of,  224. 
Semi,  109. 
Sendo,  287. 
Seppuku,  441,  446. 


Servants,  13,  38,  363;  the  problem 
of,  76. 

Sewerage,  330,  433. 

Sexes,  the  gulf  between,  125;  segre- 
gation of,  125. 

Shidzuoka,  359. 

Shijo,  374. 

Shimonoseki,  9,  206;    Straits  of,  3. 

Shinaikai,  375. 

Shin-heimin,  321. 

Shinkawa,  Kobe,  329,  332,  335. 

Shinto,  378;  priest,  169;  shrines, 
306. 

Shintoism,  9,  145,  151,  159,  168, 
172,  174,  175,  250,  272,  301,  323, 
385,  386,  441,  448,  449,  451,  452; 
little  known  of  its  basic  prin- 
ciples, 173;  mcst  vital  phase  of, 
1 68;  the  symbol  of,  148. 

Shinzaike,  "Heron  Castle,"  197;  the 
village  temple,  195. 

Shioya,  319. 

Shoji,  6,  80,  253. 

Shopping,  86. 

Shotoku  Taishi,  380,  381,  442,  443. 

Shrines,  8,  16,  150,  153-154. 

Siberia,  406. 

Silk,  325. 

Skyscraper,  a,  26. 

Slums,  329-336,  343. 

Sociability,  15,  58. 

Socialism,  315. 

Socialist,  405. 

Social  welfare,  336. 

Soldiers,  101. 

Soshi  (physical  force  politicians), 
404. 

Soullessness,  132. 

S.  P.  C.  A.f  116. 

Sports,  117. 

Stage,  see  Drama. 

Station,  railroad,  9. 

Stock  Exchange,  221. 

Street-cars,  125,  258. 

Streets,  6;    sidewalklcss,   17. 

Strikes,  346,  352,  354-360,  362,  377, 
388. 

Students,  383,  385,  387-392. 

Subashiri,  307. 

Suffrage,  378,  401. 

Suicide,  410. 

Suma,  163,  181,  185,  187;  bathers, 
indifference  to  the  nude,  185. 

Suma's  fire-brigade,  185. 


460 


JAPAN— REAL  AND  IMAGINARY 


Sumo,  121. 
Sunday,  16. 
Superdreadnought,  54. 
Superstition,  431. 
Sutras,  250. 
Suwayama  Park,  52. 
Suzuki  &  Co.,  369,  373. 
Sweetmeats,  104. 
Syphilis,  75. 


Tabi,  4,  273. 

Taiko,  224;    Hideyoshi,  286. 

Taira,  443;   family,  440. 

Takada,  298. 

Takano,  Doctor,  375. 

Takatori,  357. 

Tamba  Maru,  n. 

Tatami,  18. 

Tea  ceremony,  217. 

Teacher,  362,  393. 

Tea-houses,  44,  53,  55,  60,  242. 

Tea  sets,  13. 

Telegraph,  358,  377. 

Telephones,  378. 

Temple,  229;  bell,  Nara,  239;  wor- 
ship, 265. 

Temples,  264,  269. 

Tennoism,  299,  431,  448. 

Terauchi,  Count,  371,  373,  404-405, 
407. 

Theater,  122,  216,  218,  370,  409. 

Theaters,  262,  460. 

Tokiwa,  60;   tea-house,  44. 

Tokonami  (Home  Minister),  359. 

Tokonoma,  245. 

Tokugawa,  365,  425,  446;  Bakafu, 
206;  era,  175;  leyasu,  349,  381, 
409. 

Tokyo,  286,  299,  335,  338,  349,  361, 
366,  376,  392,  406,  418;  April 
1 5th  a  holiday,  287;  Ginza,  290; 
Hibiya  Park,  290;  leyasu's  tomb, 
294;  medieval  Japan,  179;  my 
last  visit  there,  291;  paved 
streets,  287;  Ueno  Station,  291 ; 
Yamashiro-ya  Hotel,  291. 

Torii,  8,  149,  203,  204,  205,  406. 

Tourists'  Bureau,  181. 

Trade,  149. 

Trams,  143,  208,  223,  352,  357. 

Treatment  of  foreigners,  134. 

Trolley-cars,  7,  143,  208,  352,  357. 


Tsuruga,  296,  298. 
Tunnel  slums,  335. 
Twenty-one  Demands,  405,  406. 

U 

Ujimasu,  Baron,  426. 
Umbrellas,  98. 
Umewaka  Minoru,  417. 
United  States,  435. 
Universities,  372,  380,  389. 
Unreliability,  132. 


Vagrants,  410. 
Vaudeville,  Japanese,  123. 
Venders,  103. 
Vladivostok,  296. 

W 

Wages,  23,  56,  354,  355,  356,  358, 

362,  363. 
Waitresses,  56. 
Washington,  George,  384. 
Westernization,  423. 
Whisky,  263. 

White  man,  the  coming  of,  65. 
Wilson,  President,  407. 
Woman,  426,  427;  status  of,  135. 
Women,  89,  91,  103,  104-105,  299, 

343,  373,  38i,  419,  425,  432,  433, 

443,  448;   in  art,  272;   treatment 

of,  in  public,  124. 
Working-hours,  23. 
Workmen,  87;  attitude  toward 

managers  and  bosses,  137. 
Wrestling,  118. 

X 

Xavier,  Francis,  452. 

Y 

Yama,  282. 

Yamada  Ise,  220,  301,  385,  386, 
449. 

Yamaguchi,  14,  205. 

Yamamoto,  Minister  of  Agricul- 
ture, 375. 

Yamato,  234,  322,  445;  hills  of, 
32,  256. 


INDEX  461 

Yodogawa  River,  209.  Young,  Robert,  436,  437. 

Yodogimi,  280.  Yuaikai   (labor    union),    360,    363, 

Yokohama,    street    conditions    in,       373,  375,  376. 

210. 

Yomiuri   (newspaper),  406. 
Yoritomo,  297,  440,  443. 
Yoshitsune,  297,  440,  443.  Zen  sect,  275. 


THE   END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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